Round-Up of Our Final Big Event of the Year ‘Startups of Future Past’ – Part of StartMeUp Week 2014

November 19, 2014 by Iris Leung

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How was your Startmeup Week 2014? Hong Kong’s ecosystem collectively pulled out all stops to showcase technology and entrepreneurship last week, as our city hosted a dizzying total of 48 events in just 5 days.

Our final big event of the year ‘Startups of Future Past’ last Wednesday was a huge success, with over 200 startup supporters in attendance to celebrate three very important birthdays. While our own Gene Soo turned 21 once more, StartupsHK and the Hong Kong startup scene turned 5 this year. ‘Future Past’ served as a look back to 2009 and a forward glance at 2019, and we also introduced six of 2014’s hottest startups.

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Kicking off the event was was ‘The Last 5 Years’ panel, featuring a batch of Hong Kong startup scene pioneers. Moderated by our own Casey Lau, the panel featured Jon Buford of Makible, Cedric Delzenne of Shop Des Createurs, Michelle Lam of Spoilt, David Zhu of Divide, Theodore Ma of CoCoon and Ben Cheng of Oursky who all lent a hand in building the foundations of our ecosystem.

Back in 2009, there were no coworking spaces in Hong Kong so entrepreneurs met regularly at Cafe Habitu to chat building a startup on minimal resources. Jon, who founded Hong Kong’s first co-working space BootHK, remembers renting out a 1,000 square foot office space and putting HK $120,000 plus “blood, sweat and tears” into the project. While people worked in the space during the day, BootHK served as a meetup venue at night for groups such as HackJam and Dim Sum Labs.

Thank you for all the memories at Startups of Future Past.

A photo posted by StartupsHK (@startupshk) on

The group also remembered Hong Kong’s first startup conference at Cyberport which had 16 startups pitching. The event was in response to Ben’s suggestion that the startup scene needed more media exposure in order to grow, and a conference would help facilitate that. Just five years later, there are more than a handful entrepreneurship-focused publications in Hong Kong and startup events (including pitches and conferences) on a daily basis.

Next up was the ‘Hottest Hong Kong Startups Right Now’ panel, featuring a diverse batch of startups that we’ve deemed the best and the brightest. The panel featured Antony Wong of MyFlat.HK, Ashok Jaiswal of EzeeCube, Benedict Wong of Bindo, Luke Grana of GRANA, Danny Yeung of Prenetics and Steven Lam of GoGoVan.

Before sitting down to chat, each entrepreneur had the chance to pitch their product to the audience. While Steven celebrated GoGoVan’s move from a 600 square foot space into their new Kwun Tong office (after raising US $6.5 million in Series A), Luke shared his startup story of how he moved into the logistics arena after years of being a coffee business entrepreneur (selling two cafes before founding GRANA).

The panel then had all six entrepreneurs come together to share their ‘aha moments’ which was made up of the weird, wacky and unconventional. While Steven said GoGoVan was born from hustling for his lunch box advertising startup (and a genuine hate for call centers), Antony remembered his frustration with antiquated Hong Kong community messaging boards that required too much paperwork.

Gene, who moderated the panel, drove home the importance of team dynamics – and Luke agreed and said that building a strong team was essential to getting investment (which GRANA has just raised a seed round of US $1 million). Danny, whose genetics testing startup requires heavyweight researchers, didn’t come from academia, but managed to attract a like-minded team of PhDs.

While they’ve gained tremendous traction this year, these startups weren’t always at the top of their game and the panel reflected on their biggest lessons learned. Luke said he found it easier to raise capital once they had officially launched, Antony said to take the risk, let go of short-term income and look for the big picture.

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In the final panel, we were taken into the year 2019 with a diverse panel made up of Duncan Turner of HAXLR8R, Cermain Cheung of Choy, Cheung & Co., Allison Baum of Fresco Capital Advisors, Elad Goz of the Consulate General of Israel in Hong Kong, Hilary Szymujko of blueprint HK, Sam Gellman of Uber and Danny Yeung of Prenetics – who is also one of the founding partners of SXE Ventures.


According to this group that ran the gamut of hardwarians to tech investors, the future of Hong Kong’s startup scene looks promising. While Sam believes that the sharing economy is all about amping up security, Elad sees Israeli startups flocking into the Hong Kong in hopes of tapping into the Mainland market. The panel also discussed China’s dominant role in Hong Kong’s startup future, more and more corporates moving into the startup acceleration phase and the need for a stronger female presence in the tech and venture space.

Will Hong Kong make good on these predictions on its ecosystem’s exciting future? Stick around with us for another 5 years and see for yourself!

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and of course Happy Birthday to our own Gene Soo!


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