It’s been ten years since a group of us went to listen to some talks by Silicon Valley people like Dave McClure at Cyberport and him telling us to start “your own ecosystem.” That story, which we’ve repeated many times over, is what kicked-off the startup scene in Hong Kong for us back in 2009 — and look at how much its grown. From startups raising no money to a handful of unicorns today, one co-workspace to 150+ of them, vertical accelerators, multiple international tech conferences, corporate and governmental innovation labs, huge turn-outs for demo days – wow, its just incredible to see wh ..read more

Betatron recently announced that they’ll be investing up to US$150K into each startup for their next cohort which starts in September 2019. They’re aiming to invest in 8-12 startups with applications closing on 18th July. Betatron will also be changing the program length – previous Cohorts lasted for four months, however, starting with Cohort #5, they will be condensing the same program into three months. We spoke with Sam Ameen, Betatron’s Director of Marketing, to learn more about how the Hong Kong-based accelerator program has been evolving over the last couple of years. StartupsHK: Congr ..read more

With SaaS eating the world its time to make sure you know what the market opportunities are and how, if you’re a SaaS startup, to up your game. SaaStock is a huge European conference that is kicking off their first Asia conference right here in Hong Kong – and so we wanted to make sure you all knew about it and had a chance to get involved. We sat down with founder and CEO Alex Theuma to get a little more insight into his conference and why you should go. Hi Alex, tell us about about yourself: Hi StartupsHK, I’m the Founder and CEO of SaaStock. In 2015, while working in SaaS sales, I decided ..read more

It’s coming again – RISE –  the conference to end all tech conferences is coming back for its FIFTH year in Hong Kong and the excitement is already growing as we are ready to welcome 18,000+ attendees from around the world to our fair city to talk and showcase tech. But how can you, dear reader get more involved with the conference itself? We’ve put together this handy list so that you can filter through all the messages. For Startups If you haven’t got your booth yet you can apply for one here. Its more than just a stand, you get to register for Office Hours with mentors and investors and yo ..read more

Klook announced it has raised US$225M in Series D+ funding. This increases the company’s total Series D funding round to US$425M. The SoftBank Vision Fund led the round with participation from existing investors, including Sequoia China, Matrix Partners, TCV, and OurCrowd. This represents the largest financing in the global travel activities and services industry. In just four years, Klook has become the most searched travel activities and services company on Google. In the last year, the Hong Kong-based company expanded its global footprint into Australia, Europe and the United States to del ..read more

WHub’s FinTech Whitepaper presents the key findings and facts as well as a comprehensive analysis of the contributing factors in the ecosystem that have solidified Hong Kong’s position as a leading global Financial Hub and its evolution into a competitive FinTech Hub. Such contributing factors include the strength of its financial sectors, a strong talent pool, Hong Kong’s position as a gateway to regional and Mainland China markets, the regulatory framework, as well as many other variables. Hong Kong has seen extensive activity in its startup ecosystem with an estimated 3,000+ startups. Spec ..read more

Thanks Paul Chan! For the first time since we started StartupsHK, the Hong Kong government is really coming up with the cash to support our ecosystem. Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan delivered his third Budget Speech yesterday with a raft of new monetary sweeteners aimed at promoting the city’s innovation and technology development. We refuse to call it “I.T.” – lets just call it “tech!” $5.5 billion for the development of Cyberport 5 to accommodate more technology companies and startups. The expansion project is expected to provide about 66,000 sqm of floor area, and include faciliti ..read more