Hong Kong is consistently ranked as one of the world’s greatest cities—and now it’s fast becoming one of the most dynamic tech startup environments in Asia. Clearly, the South China finance and banking powerhouse has no shortage of innovation, especially when it comes to technology.
The following 11 startups represent the best and brightest Hong Kong-based tech upstarts to watch for in 2016.
11. Pokeguide
New York City subway riders are well familiar with the Exit Strategy app—launched back in 2009—that lets riders know which train door to stand next to for an optimized travel route to the nearest exit. Well now, Hong Kong has its own version called Pokeguide, complete with restaurant and activity recommendations.
10. Snapask
Snapask is a mobile tutoring platform connecting students to tutors, offering help in subjects ranging from Mathematics and English to film studies and hotel operations. The app is currently in use by over 50,000 students across Asia.
9. MailTime
MailTime transforms regular email into a social, text message-based interactions. The app enables communications across users without the need to add friends—and is even accessible without the app, making it a truly open experience.
8. Omate
Omate is the developer of the TrueSmart watch, dubbed the world’s first water-resistant Android smartwatch 2.0. The project holds the title of 5th most funded Kickstarter project in the Design category, raising $1 million on the crowdfunding platform.
7. Spacebox
Like many Asian metropoles, lack of personal space is one of the more prominent challenges of living in Hong Kong. Spacebox is tackling this problem by offering an on-demand storage solution serving everywhere in city: users simply order space online and pack up their items in the provided storage units for pickup. The service offers a digital inventory platform for customers to track their belongings.
6. GENIE
GENIE is a mobile app that enables employers to post and hire temporary workers in as quickly as 5 minutes. Notable features include push-based job recommendations and an algorithm-based skills-to-jobs matching system.
5. TeamNote
TeamNote is a SaaS/mobile-based work productivity platform that enables better collaboration between colleagues and teammates. The solution is in use by customers from a myriad of industries for a variety of use cases—from real estate and insurance to logistics and corporate HR.
4. GROM
If you’ve ever suffered through a day with ill-fitting shoes, GROM’s solution will certainly be of interest to you. Using the latest innovations in 3D printing, the web app gives podiatrists the ability to offer corrective and stylish footwear customized to the customer’s foot bed.
3. Neat
Neat is a mobile-only banking and payment platform focusing on the burgeoning pay-by-selfie/verify-by-selfie space. This innovation is seeing quite a bit of traction as of late: a couple months back, Amazon registered its pay-by-selfie technology with the U.S. Patent Office.
2. Easyship
Easyship consolidates over 80 partner courier services into a single, easy-to-use platform for international shipping that enables on-demand pickup, packing, shipping, and tracking of packages.
1. WeLab
WeLab’s Wolaidai is one of China’s largest mobile lending platforms and its WeLend.hk service is the largest online lending platform in Hong Kong. The firm recently raised $160M in Series B financing from Khazanah and ING Bank.
Make no mistake—entrepreneurship is alive and well in this busting metropolis of 7 million. From mobile lending platforms to rugged smart watches, these 11 offerings are paving the way for a new generation of startups taking hold in this global financial center, as well as great China and beyond.
Source(s):
- http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/1924649/hong-kong-start-neat-uses-selfies-verify-payment-account
- http://www.welab.co
- https://www.goeasyship.com
- https://www.getgrom.com
- http://www.teamnoteapp.com
- http://www.spacebox.com.hk
- http://www.omate.com
- http://www.pokeguide.com
- https://snapask.co
- http://mailtime.com
- Tags:
- asia
- HK
- incubator
- innovation
- VC
- venture capital
