Great news for Hong Kong FinTech! Nova Founders Capital, a global Internet investment firm headquartered in Hong Kong, has raised US $50 million from Pacific Century Group (founded by Li Ka-shing’s son Richard Li and operates mainly in Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan). The funds will be used to back, build and acquire high-growth FinTech startups in emerging markets.
This adds to the strength of the booming local FinTech scene as 2014 has been a busy year for Hong Kong. Besides the FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific accelerator program that’s just kicked off at Cyberport, two of our startups have also raised impressive rounds of funding this year – DemystData raised US $5 million in Series A, while 8 Securities picked up $9 million in Series B.
For those unfamiliar with Nova Founders, it was founded by two former Rocket Internet managers Mads Faurholt-Jorgensen and Raphael Strauch. Also a pair of entrepreneurs, Faurholt-Jorgensen and Strauch have a proven track record of backing and growing 30+ tech startups in the past.
According to a release, Nova Founders views FinTech as the ‘largest remaining Internet frontier’ which spawns huge opportunity in markets such as Europe, Latin America and Asia. “We have so far identified twenty-two billion dollar opportunities in financial services Internet models worldwide,” said Faurholt-Jorgensen. “We have already begun work to build and invest in first, five of them [and] firmly believe that the next tech superstars will come from the FinTech industry.”
Having launched their European headquarters in London, Nova Founders will be opening an office in Silicon Valley next year. Besides their interest in Asian startups, they’re currently in talks to invest in Denmark in order to tap into the Nordic markets and is also interested in expanding operations in Germany.
Successful ventures on the Nova Founders’ portfolio include CompareGlobalGroup (the largest financial comparison company in the world by footprint), Lion&Lion (one of Southeast Asia’s fastest growing digital marketing agencies) and GlassesGroupGlobal (leading eyewear web marketplace in the Asia-Pacific).
Visit Nova Founders Capital’s website for more details.
