Hong Kong Startup ‘Mailtime’ Officially Launches During TechCrunch Disrupt’s ‘Startup Battlefield’

MailTime2

You know what’s exciting?

Seeing people you work with leave and go start a startup!

What’s even more exciting, when that person is then on the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt pitching to thousands of people in San Francisco!

Earlier this month, a batch of Hong Kong startups led by the ‘Cyberport Delegation to the US’ stormed San Francisco for TechCrunch Disrupt. Among them were Notey, GoGoVan, Shopline and Ambi.

Besides rubbing shoulders with Bay Area entrepreneurs and investors, one of our startups seized this opportunity to officially launch their product during ‘Startup Battlefield.’ As the first Hong Kong startup to enter this pitch competition, MailTime unveiled their app to Disrupt conference goers and to the ‘App Store.’ Download it for iOS here!

Founded in late 2013 by Heatherm Huang and Gary Lau (who also built instant voice messager TalkBox), MailTime raised a seed round of US $500,000 from a group of China and Silicon Valley investors in June and our former Girl Friday Charlie Sheng now heads up marketing efforts for them. Having grown the team to six, the SF-based startup is plugging away at an Android version and plan on disrupting email attachments in the very near future.

[Read more…]

Hong Kong’s ‘Nova Founders Capital’ Raises US$50 Million to Back FinTech Startups in Asia

hkedward

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.

[Read more…]

Hong Kong Social Travel App Spottly Raises US$850,000 Seed Round to Fund Expansion Plans

unnamed

Location-based social travel app Spottly has just raised a US $850,000 seed round to back their video-focused product and to expand into new markets. Investors in this round include Silicon Valley’s 500 Startups, China’s Cherubic Ventures and Gobi Partners.

A trip planning aid that allows travelers to discover places from their smartphone, Spottly is an attractive repository of handpicked travel tips from 17,000 places, 2,100 cities and 115 countries – and has a growing user base in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Thailand. The newly launched v.2.0 lets users create video travel posts, instead of just sharing static images.

“As more and more people use social media to share their travel finds instantaneously, we found that travelers increasingly prefer beautifully curated visual recommendations, served to you right away through social media, trusted friends and local key opinion insiders,” said founder Edwyn Chan in a release. “The next generation travel guide will need to be curated, instant and visual.”

[Read more…]