About StartupsGBA
In 2026, the StartupsGBA website was upgraded by the team at Global From Asia to revive the startup ecosystem built in the Hong Kong and Greater Bay Community.
Startups GBA is the evolution of the Startups community over time, from Startbase and StartupsHK.
About StartupsGBA
With over 300 entries, StartupsGBA aims to be the most comprehensive and up-to-date tech database covering Greater Bay Area based startups.
Our main mission is to have easy, transparent access to the Greater Bay’s growing number of startups for easy access from web and mobile devices.
The directory section is a database with curation by StartupsGBA - meaning that any Greater Bay based startup can suggest their company to our directory and that we will check and verify the information when needed.
We are growing our content resources now and will continue to add new information as we progress.
Want to connect? Reach out today and contact us!
Our History & Founders
StartupsHK was founded in 2009 by Casey Lau, Jon Buford, Gene Soo and Daniel Cheng to help grow the startup community in Hong Kong. The mission of StartupsHK is to drive awareness to startups and entrepreneurs through conferences, networking events and its web platform with the main goal of sharing startup knowledge and connecting different parties in the startup ecosystem.
Gene Soo
Co-Founder and Director @GeneSoo
Gene Soo is a serial entrepreneur and has launched businesses in tech and fashion space. He is a computer engineer by training and has worked in Silicon Valley as an engineer at SanDisk and also at Accenture as a management consultant. Since returning to Hong Kong in 2009, Gene has worked at a family office and also at 6waves as a Business Development Director. Besides having co-founded StartupsHK, Gene also co-founded StyleNearby, a mobile platform for showcasing designs in a city and is also the director of S.Nine by Susanna Soo, a womenswear fashion label. Gene is currently the General Manager of Hong Kong of Citymapper, an award-winning journey planning app.
Gene has been active in pushing for a better startup ecosystem in Hong Kong and has been involved in technology, mobile, gaming and fashion start-ups space. Gene received his BS and MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University as well as a MBA from Columbia University.
Casey Lau
Co-Founder and Executive Director @Casey_Lau
Casey Lau is one of the Hong Kong tech start-up pioneers, having launched one of the first HK-based web design studios, co-founded ActionAce.com during the DotCom era – HK’s first e-commerce site specialising in toys, anime and video games (later sold to PCCW in 2000). He also co-founded Velocity9 – a multimedia company sold in 2002, and the Popcorn Media Network – a digital media company that publishes luxury shopping sites like Butterboom.com.
He is also the newly appointed Community Developer for the SoftLayer Catalyst Startup Program in Asia-Pacific, providing virtual incubator services for startups across the region.
He is also a comic book creator with the iPad-original series Super Kaiju Hero Force available for iBooks.
Advisors
- Mikaal Abdulla – Advisor
- Tytus Michalski – Advisor