IOI Kickstart grants RM50,000 to six startups

The chosen ones: Voon (back row, centre) with grant recipients at the IOI Kickstart programme at IOI Rio in Bandar Puteri Puchong. — ART CHEN/The Star

PETALING JAYA: IOI Properties Group Bhd presented grants of RM50,000 each to six selected promising startups under its IOI Kickstart programme.

IOI Kickstart is aimed at providing a launchpad for new businesses in the field of property technology, agricultural technology and green solutions to realise their business ideas.

After receiving 40 entries for the programme, 15 startups were invited to pitch their ideas.

“Only six out of those 15 groups were chosen and are believed to have business ideas that could create a positive impact to the economy, environment and society,” said IOI Properties chief executive officer Datuk Voon Tin Yow during the grant presentation yesterday.

The six selected winning startups were Arus Oil, FESLink, GrabMaid, LinkUp Smart Solutions, Safe-T5, and Tomorrow Data.

Apart from the RM50,000 grant, the startups will also have access to office spaces at IOI Rio, a next-gen smart city located in Bandar Puteri Puchong.

They will also benefit from the mentoring of IOI Properties Group’s C-Suite led by executive director Lee Yoke Har.

Voon believes that innovation is key to survival as it disrupts the status quo, pushes boundaries, stretches the common business models and develops new markets.

“Only when we embrace innovation, we are able to drive sustainable growth,” he said.

Arus Oil is a business that collects used cooking oil to be repurposed into biodiesel.

The new company attracts customers by giving them cashbacks for the collection of used cooking oil.

They are also planning to set up “smart tanks” with smart metering as collection stations at various locations.

“As a strong advocate for sustainability, IOI Properties Group is particularly attracted to Arus Oil’s business concept,” said Voon.

He added that the business has a tremendous growth potential as repurposing of used cooking oil gives it a new lease of life instead of clogging up drains and polluting waterways.

Meanwhile, FESLink offers cutting-edge access control and management platform with an interesting cloud-based management system on desktop and mobile options.

Some boutique hotels in Thailand have already started using the company’s offering.

The company has also completed a few proof-of-concepts including for licence plate recognition, lifts and facilities access control, and seamless self check-in experience for visitors.

On the other hand, GrabMaid is the first platform in Malaysia that allows price comparison and direct booking for cleaning services from various vendors. GrabMaid is heading towards rapid expansion as it now serves more than 100 offices in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor.

LinkUp Smart Solutions is known to integrate different smart-home devices into a single cloud-based platform for a seamless control.

The company has been working with IOI Properties to incorporate their smart-home solutions as well as solar-powered solutions into selected projects. Moving forward, the company plans to implement township-wide surveillance using drones and CCTVs.

Safe-T5 is known for its cloud-based slope monitoring system to monitor slope movements in real-time for early warnings and has worked with IOI Properties’s quality assurance team for different construction management applications.

The company has also recently ventured into smart retail and smart farming control systems using network-of-things technology.

Meanwhile, Tomorrow Data is an application developer company that has worked with IOI Properties to develop end-to-end leads and sales tracking process including, e-signing of sales purchase agreements and conclusion of loan documentations.

Voon said IOI Properties intends to continue the IOI Kickstart programme to uncover new talents and provide a testbed to realise and commercialise innovative business ideas.