Philippine startup Horsepower, along with contestants from four other Asian countries, has been selected to compete in a worldwide tournament for the most promising, world-changing startups.
The tournament is 1776 Challenge Cup, to be held in June of this year in Washington DC. 1776, together with Startup Federation partners, Revolution, the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN), and over 50 incubator hosts around the world, aims to discover the most promising, highly scalable startups that are poised to solve the major challenges of our time.
The participants will compete for over $1 million in prizes. In addition, they have the opportunity to spend time with the investors, customers, media, and other key connections that can help them succeed on a global scale.
Horsepower’s journey started with the Philippine competition, held last December at the ImpactHub in Makati, with over 40 startups. Horsepower, along with two other Philippine startups, went to Japan for the regional competition. There, even 1776 managing director David Zipper said, ?Team Philippines is very strong.?
Jorge “Jojy” Azurin, CEO of Horsepower, explained: “After my pitch, a lot of people from other South Asian countries approached [me] saying how they can relate to our services of providing healthcare to the self-employed and overseas workers. And [they] were asking when are we launching in their countries. I knew our idea is very much validated during the competition.”
Horsepower’s founders are Azurin, Diego Jose Ramos, and Hannah Crisostomo.
Horsepower, however, offers much more than healthcare. Horsepower enables solo entrepreneurs and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to pay their utility bills, post government contributions payments, and access Horsepower’s general tax and legal knowledge base. In addition, Horsepower offers business compliance services.
The health insurance benefits are available to the paid plans.
Resources:
Horsepower web site
Challenge Cup | 1776