News Archives - Page 41 of 261

San Francisco-Based Uber Officially Launches in Hong Kong Following Their Sevens Weekend Trial Run

July 18, 2014 by Arshiya Khullar

Travis Kalanick, CEO, Uber, speaking at the launch of the app in Hong Kong

[UPDATE: #ubericecream is happening today in Hong Kong. Log onto Uber App and you can order 5 cups of ice cream for $150 and they will deliver it to your office]

If you’re bored of travelling in the crowded subways or slow trams, and want to revel in the pleasures of a luxurious private car instead, Uber has finally arrived in Hong Kong.

The taxi-hailing app announced its entry into the teeming streets of Asia’s financial capital in a media launch on yesterday. In a city, where the ubiquitous red urban taxis are a popular means of transport, Uber hopes to attract the discerning traveller with its reliable and efficient services.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Sam Gellman, Travis Kalanick, Uber

San Francisco-Based Startup PredictionIO Raises US $2.5 Million in a Seed Round; Set to Open Hong Kong Office

July 18, 2014 by Iris Leung

L to R: Kenneth Chan – Founding Engineer,Simon Chan (CEO) Donald Szeto (CTO), Justin Yip – Data Scientist

PredictionIO, an open source machine learning server, has just raised US $2.5 million in seed funding. Investors in this round include Azure Capital (who has backed VMWare and KISSmetrics), QuestVP, CrunchFund, Stanford – StartXFund, Kima Ventures, IronFire, Sood Ventures and XG Ventures.

Dubbed the “MySQL of Prediction,” PredictionIO enables developers and data scientists to build machine learning into products easily with just a few lines of code. PredictionIO’s system is based on user-defined goals and uses custom prediction models for every app.

“We want to make PredictionIO useful for all developers who are building web and mobile apps – we are going to support more predictive engines,” said co-founder and CEO Simon Chan. “Currently we support personalization, product suggestions, trend and churn prediction.”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: PredictionIO, Simon Chan

Hong Kong’s Cyberport Will Be Hosting FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific, an Accelerator Program for FinTech Startups

July 15, 2014 by Iris Leung

Besides being a great hardware hub, Hong Kong’s strength lies in its age old reputation as a financial center.

Homegrown FinTech startups have seen much success, with trading platform 8 Securities raising US $8 million back in 2012 and opening an office in Japan this year, and data analytics company DemystData who has opened a NYC office and raising a subsequent US $5 million.

Wanting to further harness the our city’s talent pool and resources, Accenture has teamed up with 10 top financial institutions such as HSBC, UBS and Morgan Stanley to create an accelerator program called the FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific. The 12-week program will be housed at our own Cyberport, and will be for startups developing disruptive tech in the areas of Big Data, Analytics, Payments, Risk Management, Security, Compliance, Social Media, Mobile and Payments. See the full list of partners here.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Accenture, FinTech Innovation Lab