Triip.me, a Vietnamese startup allowing users to plan their own tour and sell it to interested tourists, wins the first prize at the Seedstars HCM City event. It will represent Viet Nam to compete at the Seedstars World Final competition in Switzerland in February 2015. — Photo ictnews.vn

Triip.me, run by five young people from different backgrounds, is a Vietnamese start-up that allows users to plan their own tour and sell it to interested tourists. In the final round, it will compete with 29 teams from across the world. The winning firm will receive US$500,000.

At the Seedstars HCM City event on August 16, Triip.me was placed first, followed by Taembe.vn, an e-commerce website for mother and baby care products, and Cloudjet Solutions which provides software for managing human resources in firms.

After its first successful edition in 2013 across 20 cities, Seedstars World expanded its competition to more than 30 countries.

Seedstars World first-place winner last year was Flitto, an innovative crowd-sourcing translation platform developed in Korea.

This year, the competition made its debut in Viet Nam.

Julien Berthomier, Seedstars World organizer and jury member, said Viet Nam, and especially HCM City, is known as a good place for startups in Southeast Asia.

Enterprises registered in the contest must have a strong background, even though they are still young companies, he said.

Enterprises that are eligible must have less than US$500,000 in capital investment, and a maximum two years of operation with a product that has been introduced on the market.

The Seedstars competition is expected to grow worldwide and put the fastest-growing startup scenes on the map.

The next stop of the tour is Seedstars Manila on August 27.

It continues on to Jakarta, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Mexico City, Bogota, Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo.

The competition was initiated by Alisee De Tonnac and Pierre-Alain Masson with the support of the Seedstars SA investment company. — VNS