Hong Kong's tech startup ecosystem is moving up another notch, thanks to deals such as the $9 million investment in the city's own bike-sharing service GoBee and the backing of six startups from a Sequoia Capital China-aligned fund with Hong Kong X Technology Fund.
The six new Hong Kong investments by the newly formed fund indirectly taps Sequoia, which has funded dozens of mainland China startups and emerging companies.
Hong Kong has lagged Beijing, Shanghai and other leading Chinese cities in startup development -- take the bike-sharing phenomenon as one recent example - but the city has clearly taken on more startup flair in the past few years.
Now, Sequoia's Neil Shen, who is also chairman of Hong Kong X, added that he is "more confident than ever in the entrepreneurial spirit of Hong Kong."
Hong Kong X encompasses an accelerator program, mentoring, and a co-working space sponsored by Hong Kong property company Sino Group. The Hong Kong X fund was set up with strong academic connections, bringing in two professors from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Hong Kong.
The six companies picked to join the Hong Kong X accelerator program are all research-intensive young local companies with operations needing that extra boost. They range from biotech to fintech companies, and other fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, big data and medical services that the Hong Kong government is pushing.
Hong Kong has no shortage of groups nurturing startups, from academia to incubation programs from Cyberport and HKSTP to the government-funded Startmeup.HK.
Overseas returnees are part of the city's startup culture. Hong Kong can be seen as a more welcoming launch pad for startups with favorable taxes and better IP protection. That overseas vantage point often gives newcomers an edge in spotting opportunities for new companies. -- for instance China's bike-sharing leaders Ofo and MoBike have not entered the market. Raphael Cohen, the 28-year-old Parisian founder of GoBee, said he saw "bike sharing as the next big trend" and figured that Hong Kong was ripe for its own entrant. He formed GoBee in April, and raised $9 million with Alibaba's entrepreneurship fund in tow. China's Ofo and MoBike have stayed out of the Hong Kong market so far, leaving GoBee to scale to 3,000 bikes and plans to raise more financing within a few months. Another plus for GoBee is that it's smartly avoiding the problem of bikes crowding streets and pedestrian areas by relying on the Hong Kong government-owned bike racks, which were largely empty until GoBee came around.
