With the Southeast Asian region fast gaining recognition as a fertile ground for start-ups, Thailand has gotten in on the action with a number of companies seeing their nascent beginnings in the Land of Smiles. Known the world over for its beautiful natural scenery, mouth-watering cuisine, and a rich culture steeped in antiquity – Thailand is now making a name for itself as the place to be for start-ups.
With a remarkably low cost of living when compared to the quality of its infrastructure and high-speed internet widely available, it’s little wonder that Thailand – long a favourite of digital nomads – is seeing an ever-increasing number of self-starters flocking to its shores and choosing to set the foundations of their next big idea there. In the latest edition of the rankings list, Top 10 of Asia shares its picks (presented in no particular order) of the start-ups you’ll want to keep your eye on.
1) Sunday
Sunday is an insurance technology company on a mission to not only personalise the insurance space but to make it easy and accessible to all people. An insurance technology provider determined to make a positive impact on the lives of its customers, Sunday delivers a simple and enjoyable experience – be it in the healthcare, car, gadget, or travel spaces.
Insurance can be easily bought and activated anytime and from anywhere directly with them, through key ecosystems, or even through referrals. Enabled by virtual and reliable risk management services, you can rest at ease knowing Sunday has your back.
2) Flash Express
Established in 2017 by Mr Komsan Saelee, Flash Express has come on in leaps and bounds since its inception. Its meteoric rise saw it become the first start-up to achieve unicorn status in Thailand just three years into its operations. A comprehensive integrated e-commerce service provider, the company counts over 10,000 employees ready to serve across all 77 provinces in Thailand.
Operating over 2,500 delivery points 365 days a year, Flash Express’ delivery service is about as extensive as it gets. Delivering more than a million pieces a day, Flash Express is the connective heartbeat of Thailand.
3) Finnomena
Finnomena is a fully integrated digital wealth management platform for investors and financial advisors. Finnomena can count more than 100,000 investment accounts opened with them and provides professionally generated investment content through its own investor’s knowledge hub that attracts 15 million monthly views. Born from the words ‘finance’ and ‘phenomena’, Finnomena has most definitely managed to live up to the billing as a financial phenomenon.
Finnomena’s application also has a feature where it recommends an automated portfolio of stocks based on the level of risk their investors choose, helping to further simplify the process.
4) Rabbit Internet
Created in 2015 and backed by Bangkok’s leading public service provider, BTS Group, Rabbit Internet offers a platform to accelerate the process of building internet business and to provide the opportunity to invest in local entrepreneurs in the early and growth stages of their pursuits.
Rabbit Internet’s key focus is on sustainable consumer business models for the Southeast Asian region and its specialisation in product-centric organisations means that Rabbit Internet understands how to help businesses reach their full potential. With a broad investment spectrum encompassing businesses of all sizes, Rabbit Internet is set to be behind some big happenings in the Thai business scene.
5) Queue Q
We’re all no strangers to standing in the middle of a seemingly unending queue. A task as mentally draining as it is physical, queues are a necessary evil to ensure the orderly functioning of society. Or are they? Que Q, a revolutionary queuing system that allows its users to virtually stand in line, is here to make your aggravation a thing of the past.
Users are allowed to book their spot in a queue within a range of 2 km from the selected outlet and then carry on with what they were doing without fear of missing the queue. Que Q is currently dominant in the chain restaurant industry, numbering a million users on its platform.
6) Everex
A crypto-fintech and venture-building platform, Everex utilises hybrid crypto/legacy payment and card tools to power consumer-based projects in GameFi, SportFi, PolitiFi and POV video streaming. Knowing the pitfalls of the cumbersome and outdated payment processing traditionally used by non-fintech start-ups, Everex instead seeks to make payments seamless and practical for everybody worldwide.
With financial service companies typically doing either card issuing or card payment processing, Everex combines both in one product line and with additional perks on top of that – making their fintech product a unique one.
7) Siamcardeal
Having created a splash in Thailand’s automotive dealership scene, Siamcardeal now looks to gain a foothold regionally as well. Founder Damien Kerneis started the company after a bad personal experience trying to buy a car. Going from dealer to dealer he found they either wouldn’t have the right car in stock or they wouldn’t have his preferred financing options. The thought occurred to him that it would be easier to do online and this led to the eventual formation of Siamcardeal.
With the site’s popularity so far, it seems that many would agree with that sentiment. Connecting customers with car dealerships around Thailand, users can shop by make or model or even just browse for special deals.
8) Z Home
There is no shortage of online real estate portals in Thailand yet it still sometimes takes Thai people a year or more to sell their homes. A major cause of this issue is that the majority of the properties listed on Thai websites are by agents who have no official agreements with the owners to sell their properties.
Z Home seeks to remedy this issue by providing a portal exclusively for owners to list their properties with no agents allowed. Through this, Z Home seeks to eliminate high commission costs and alleviate the illiquidity of the real estate market.
9) Freshket
Freshket was founded in 2017 by Paniangwet and Tuangploi Chiwalaksanangkoon as an e-commerce marketplace bringing together farmers and food processors and enabling them to supply fresh produce to B2B and B2C customers throughout Thailand. The platform functions as an integrated workflow marketplace for fresh food suppliers and restaurants.
The Freshket team believes that through the use of technology, they can grow to become the most trusted and sustainable end-to-end food supply chain platform in Thailand. They hope to be able to link everyone in the food supply industry and make it more efficient, creating a ripple effect that can help everyone involved.
10) SCOOTA
Nothing spoils a city quite like traffic and rampant carbon emissions. SCOOTA seeks to help alleviate those ills and was founded on an idea to make urban mobility smart, resourceful, and a lot of fun to boot. Founded in 2018, SCOOTA has gone on to establish themselves as the leaders of electric micro-mobility in Thailand.
Offering electric scooters to meet urban commuters’ demands, SCOOTA helps solve the first/last mile problem too. SCOOTA’s e-scooters get its many users wherever they need to go – be it travelling to work, going to class, running errands, or just the more enjoyable aspects of life like going to the beach or exploring the city.