The next ‘NEST Pitch Day’ is coming up on Saturday, 6 September!
The investment incubator, who has invested in local mobile startups such as personalized t-shirt designer Snaptee in the past, runs these pitch events to back disruptive and scalable early-stage startups headquartered in Asia.
According to an interview we did with CEO Simon Squibb earlier this year, NEST follows the American seed accelerator ‘Y Combinator’ model and has invested over HK $30 million into startups in the past. According to Simon, the incubator plans on injecting over HK $100 million into the local startup scene within the next 18-24 months.
In one particular NEST-backed startup story, mobile game makers Playto have already built a scalable business.
“We also help with big and small things like strategy support to network access, and we always try to help these startups get customers and traffic via our marketing know-how,” said Simon. “For example, Playto is moving fast since we invested in them and now have the final game launch ready for the US market, and are already in final stage Series A funding talks.”
So what to expect on ‘Pitch Day’? Entrepreneurs have 10 minutes to pitch the NEST panel before moving into a 20 minute Q&A session. Unlike some pitch events that throw up a 3 minute timer, NEST Pitch Days are much more thorough and investment decisions take both product and team into consideration.
If you impress the NEST team, they’ll offer seed funds of up to HK $500,000 alongside mentorship, marketing, legal and accounting support – essentially what your startup needs to get started.
Apart from planning for their next ‘Demo Day’ come October, NEST has big plans for the rest of 2014. “We are now opening up and investing in companies outside of Hong Kong and just signed our first term sheet with a Singapore startup, and will help bring them to Hong Kong and eventually China,” said Simon. “We are also working with networks in London and Silicon Valley to bring startups more suited to this market, like big data and wearable tech.”
Applications to this Y Combinator-inspired accelerator with a global reach close on Monday, 1 September at 1pm. Don’t miss out!
Apply for NEST Pitch Day here!
NEST on Startbase.HK: NEST
Simon Squibb on Startbase.HK: Simon Squibb
