Looking Back to the Future on the Hong Kong Startup Scene

January 7, 2016 by Casey Lau

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As a startup ecosystem champion and connector I get asked to do many interviews about startups in Hong Kong and Asia-Pacific (i’m in fact going to be talking about this at the East Meets West 2016 conference in Hawaii next week) I know I have been extremely lax on blogging about the ecosystem so when asked to do an interview I pick ones that will hopefully reach out to the audience intended and generate more awareness for the startup ecosystem.

I was interviewed recently by the Alibaba Morning Post South China Morning Post recently, only to find 1% of it made it into the story that had not much to do with what the story was pitched to me as. So I’ve decided to post the full email interview here in its entirety so you can read my thoughts.

No, nothing controversial just some thoughts that you might like to read in their entirety. Full of typos and all.

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Filed Under: Columns Tagged With: 2015, RISE, SCMP, startups, StartupsHK

3 Mobile Startups to Represent Hong Kong at MCAP 2016 in Honolulu

January 5, 2016 by StartupsHK

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We’re very excited to have 3 fresh new mobile startups from Hong Kong at the Mobile Challenge Asia Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii next week.

The Mobile Challenge Asia Pacific (MCAP) is a mobile startup competition that brings together entrepreneurs from 9 countries to meet and compete in order to qualify for 3 places at the GSMA Barcelona Conference World Finals in 2016. The challenge is organised by J-Seed Ventures and IE Business School in conjunction with GSMA and is sponsored in part by SoftLayer – an IBM Company.

Representing Hong Kong are:

  • SwapIt: Buy/Sell/Trade stuff in location-based smartphone app.
  • uSpace: Marauders Map for workspaces via smartphone.
  • Spincle: Create your own VR content, distribute everywhere via smartphone.

These new teams will be competing against 24 other startups from around Asia to be 3 of the finalists to be flown in to compete in Barcelona at GSMA! This is amazing viability for Hong Kong teams and we are happy to have 3 of our newest and most exciting startups out there to represent HK on a global stage.

The East Meets West 2016 conference will also be taking place next week in Honolulu and some local familiar faces like our own Casey Lau, Cyril Ebersweiler from HAX and our good friend Dave McClure of 500 Startups.

Congrats to the teams and good luck on stage!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: East Meets West, GSMA, MCAP, SoftLayer, Spincle, SwapIt, Uspace

From Canada to Hong Kong: A Founder’s View of Hong Kong’s Startup Community

December 4, 2015 by Bjorn Dawson

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With an average of eight unicorns born each year (companies worth over $1B) throughout each of the past 10 years, it’s no surprise that startups are becoming much more common as entrepreneurs strive to create the next Facebook, Uber or Xiaomi. This increased interest in entrepreneurship has sparked the creation of startup communities around the world, and Hong Kong might be next.

Throughout the past year and a half, I have become fully immersed in the vibrant startup community in Waterloo. With a population of only about 550,000, more than 1,850 startups have been founded in Waterloo in the past 5 years alone making it the most dense startup region after Silicon Valley. More than $650 million in investment has been raised by local companies including VidYard, Thalmic Labs, and Aeryon Labs, and we now have our own unicorn, Kik Messenger.

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Filed Under: Columns Tagged With: entrepreneurship, Grobo, Hong Kong, startup
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