The competition is down to just a few finalists in Channel News Asia’s “Start Up” TV show, and Andrea Loubier is one of them. Loubier is the CEO of Mailbird, a tech startup headquartered in Bali, with offices in Bandung, Indonesia, and Copenhagen, Denmark. Three judges are testing her skills with different challenges, and up to 2.000.000SG$ in funding is on the line.
“The Sparrow for Windows,” according to e27, Mailbird promises to be the “fastest and most beautiful email client you’ll ever use,” according to the company’s website. Mailbird emphasizes simplicity, and elegance. The platform supports POP3 and IMAP emails like Gmail, Yahoo!, Outlook.com and iCloud, and features include customization, effective shortcuts and productivity apps. In addition, Mailbird is designed to be mindful of your privacy—the email client is designed to never scan the content of your emails or store any of your data on Mailbird’s servers.
Excellent. And what makes this startup even more notable is that it was recently selected from hundreds of other startups to compete on the “Start Up” show on Channel News Asia, a leading regional news network. The show is a hit reality series, and offers viewers the chance to learn more about how venture capitalists work, the process of deal negotiation and how acquisitions can radically affect a startup’s future.
The TV show’s first challenge has already been posted: Raise $10,000 Singapore dollars before March 8, 2015. Judges for the second season include Eddie Chau, founding partner at TNF Ventures; Leslie Loh, founder of Red Dot Ventures; and Mark Strecker, CEO of [a•mo•bee].
Any funds that Mailbird raises over the $10,000 SGD funding goal will be donated in full to the International Diabetes Federation. Loubier writes on the Mailbird blog,
As the CEO of Mailbird, it is a challenge fighting the big corporate email companies, it’s tough leading an international team, it’s tough learning how to bootstrap and keep costs low for your budding startup. However, the biggest struggle of all, is doing all of this while also managing my Diabetes – literally a full time job and so much more.
“Mailbird is on top [in the “Start Up” show] with the most number of funders and the highest funds raised to date,” according to the company’s Feb. 19 blog post. The other leading startup is Temploy, a marketplace that automatically and anonymously match job seekers for part-time work with employers.
The Mailbird team’s Feb. 11, 2015 post noted that they’re preparing for the Mailbird 2.0 launch, with the help of a November 2014 hackathon. New features will include WhatsApp integration, allowing users to chat with mobile users directly from Mailbird, and app side bar improvements, such as the ability to have a video meeting in the side bar app of Veeting while working and collaborating with emails.
Mailbird has already racked up several awards, including “Best free email client for Windows” from PCWorld (2013) and “Best email client for Window + Gmail” from IT World (2014). The startup has also won praise from the likes of TechCrunch and the BBC.
Every Tuesday, viewers can join the 15-plus million people watching Mailbird on the TV show StartUp here.
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