Sydney-based tech start-up Deputy.com is the only Asia-Pacific company that will compete in this year’s Amazon Web Services Start-up Challenge, with a global grand prize worth $100,000.
Deputy.com is a business management solution, on web and mobile platforms, designed for HR departments.
The Amazon Web Services Start-up Challenge, launched in 2007, is a global competition aimed at helping start-ups get noticed while competing for up to $100,000 in cash and AWS credits.
As the only finalist selected from the Asia-Pacific, Deputy.com has already been awarded a package of US$10,000 in AWS credits and a trip to attend the grand finale.
Held in San José in California, the grand finale will see Deputy.com compete against six other finalists from the United States and Europe.
The finalists were selected based on their implementation of AWS, originality and creativity of their business, likelihood of long-term success and scalability, and how well their business addresses a need in the marketplace.
Each of the finalists will present to a panel of AWS executives and venture capitalists, and an audience of tech industry leaders.
Venture capital judges include Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Kleiner Perkins, Madrona Venture Group, NEA, and Sequoia Capital.
The global grand prize winner will be announced at the end of the event, and will be awarded with US$50,000 in cash and US$50,000 in AWS credits.
The winner will also have access to AWS premium support services for one year, along with AWS technical mentorship. This could lead to an investment offer from Amazon.
Deputy.com chief operating officer Robb Snell says making it to the grand finale is testament to the “tremendous” amount of hard work put in by the Deputy.com team over the past three years.
However, he says it wouldn’t have been possible without the aid of AWS, which has been “instrumental to making Deputy.com a world-class product in a short timeframe”.
“Services like Amazon Simple Storage Service and Amazon SimpleDB have enabled us to quickly develop complex features on a simple foundation,” Snell says.
“Amazon’s variable pricing has also enabled us to offer a similar pricing model to our customers where we only charge for exactly what the customer uses.”
According to Snell, AWS levels the playing field for start-ups, allowing Deputy.com to be “fiercely competitive” in the market.
“The scale and flexibility of cloud services allow us to innovate rapidly for the benefit of our customers, which in turn has fuelled tremendous growth for Deputy.com,” Snell says.
The other finalists are:
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