11 solutions pitched to secure sponsorship

Talents pose for a photo at yesterday's event. Sun Yuchen

A total of 11 solutions were pitched at the UNLEASH+ Dragon’s Den yesterday, with six of them standing out to win favor and sponsorship from funders.

The Dragon’s Den, taking place during the Marketplace & Funder Meetup held at Shenzhen Inno Park in Nanshan District, was part of UNLEASH+, a new track designed specifically for talent alumni coming back to UNLEASH to develop further and prepare to launch the solution that they are actively working on.

As a six-month pre-acceleration program designed to accommodate teams of two to four members, it requires that each team is composed of at least one previous UNLEASH talent. Teams are also required to have a prototyped and tested solution, and UNLEASH+ will support them in designing their solutions for scaled impact. The ultimate aim is that the teams will be able to bring their solutions to market.

Of the six teams winning funders’ favor, the team NovFeed, from Tanzania, which attended the UNLEASH session held in Singapore in 2018, made a pitch on SDG 2 — zero hunger. Their solution to develop cheaper fish feed went on to win sponsorship.

As fish feed is made from fish meal, which accounts for 70 percent of the cost of fish feed and is very expensive in Tanzania, they had the idea of developing a cheaper replacement for fish farmers. The fish feed they developed is made from aquatic plants and maggots.

Currently, they have completed on-farm trials, lab tests and customer discovery, and are now seeking funding to build fish feed production lines.

Another team that was favored by funders was Slam Out Loud, a company in India that offers solutions for SDG 4 and 10, under the themes quality education and reduced inequality, respectively.

The company, which registered after the team attended the first edition of UNLEASH in Denmark in 2017, offers both online and in-person courses.

Currently, they are working with 55,000 children from 10 to 17 years old in disadvantaged communities. They aim to create partnerships with Chinese educational organizations in the ongoing Shenzhen UNLEASH.

Also impressive was the solution showcased by VERE360, a team from Singapore. The company, founded and run by Alan Ng, Adila Sayyed, Izzy NGO and Sheryl Tey, focuses on developing VR-assisted curricula for Southeast Asia.

The team came up with the idea while attending the first edition of UNLEASH in Denmark in 2017. After they went back to Singapore, they started to work on the idea, set up the company and worked on getting customers.

The company develops VR content that enables people to go to different places and train different skills. For clients that do not have a physical lab, it creates VR labs for training students. The two subjects it focuses on are social issues and vocational training.

One and a half years into its inception, the company is still in an early stage, which is why they have come to Shenzhen UNLEASH, in the hope of meeting investors, the team members said.