The Hong Kong economy remained on track for recovery in the second quarter of 2021, with real GDP continuing to grow notably by 7.6% over a year alongside the improving global economic conditions and receding local epidemic. Strategically located at the heart of Asia, Hong Kong is fully capable of developing a strong tech startup ecosystem. It is ranked as the 5th fastest growing startup ecosystem in the world. The country’s service oriented economy is characterized by its low taxation and well established international financial market.
The Hong Kong government is fully committed to supporting startups in order to help realize their vision and carry their business to the next level. The government has specifically designed a budget in 2019 to help support enterprises, safeguard jobs, and stabilize the economy. Also, there are many funding schemes available to support startups. The Angel investors are actively investing in the Hong Kong startups. We have also compiled a list of active angel investors who are spreading Hong Kong’s tech renaissance.
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Top Startups in Hong Kong
1. Oriente
Oriente was established in 2017 by the co-founders of revolutionary internet companies Skype and LU.com who saw an opportunity to build a better, more equitable financial system for underserved consumers in Asia’s fastest-growing economies. Its fin-tech solutions are designed to ignite unprecedented economic value for consumers, businesses, and local communities by unlocking financial access, efficiencies, and growth potential using next-gen technologies.
Industry: Fin-Tech.
Founders: Geoffrey Prentice, Hubert Shio-Hsein Tai, Katrina Cokeng, Lawrence Chu.
Total Funding: $175M
Founded Date: 2017
2. Storiqa
Storiqa was founded in August 2017, with the aim of creating a quick-to-setup marketplace for SMEs with minimal financial borders and global transactional fees. Their key features and tools are based on using cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to resolve existing industry problems between buyers and sellers.
Industry: E-Commerce, Blockchain.
Founders: Andrian Galkin, Ruslan Tugushev.
Total Funding: $25M
Founded Date: 2017
3. PressLogic
PressLogic, a technology start-up company based in Hong Kong, was established in 2016 and started from MediaLens, its pioneer self-developed data-driven analytics system combined with machine learning capabilities for optimizing ROI performances in various social media, that uses data to build highly effective media networks in the digital world.
Industry: Digital Marketing.
Founders: Edward Chow, Ryan Cheung.
Total Funding: $10M
Founded Date: 2016
4. Ztore
Ztore is an online supermarket with convenient delivery service, selling quality groceries and home essentials. Users can simply buy what they want anywhere and anytime on Ztore.com. Pay through their certificated payment gateway, choose the delivery time slot and they will receive their delivery at home fast and safe.
Industry: E-Commerce.
Founders: Clarence Ling, Danny Shum.
Total Funding: $17.5M
Founded Date: 2015
5. Insilico
Insilico Medicine is an artificial intelligence company headquartered in Hong Kong, with R&D and management resources in the USA, Belgium, Russia, UK, Taiwan, and China sourced through hackathons and competitions. Insilico Medicine pioneered the applications of the generative adversarial networks (GANs) and reinforcement learning for generation of novel molecular structures for diseases with a known target.
Industry: Artificial Intelligence.
Founders: Alex Zhahavoronkov.
Total Funding: $306.3M
Founded Date: 2014
6. Snapask
Snapask is an education technology company that applies machine learning and mobile cloud services to make education more effective, personalised, and accessible to everyone. Snapask launched its flagship mobile application featuring its “Question & Answer” (Q&A) service. It connects students in need with qualified tutors within seconds.
Industry: Big Data, Education.
Founders: Timothy Yu.
Total Funding: $56.8M
Founded Date: 2015
7. Aqumon
AQUMON is a Hong Kong-based digital, smart investment platform, providing robo-advisory, stock trading, and wealth management services. Its mission is to leverage technology to make next-generation investment services smarter, simpler, and more affordable to individual and institutional investors. Through proprietary algorithms and scalable, technical infrastructure, AQUMON empowers anyone to invest and maximize their returns.
Industry: Fin-Tech.
Founders: Don Huang, Kelvin Lei.
Total Funding: $30M
Founded Date: 2015
8. Zeek
Zeek is a data-driven intelligent logistics technology platform that provides one-stop O2O last-mile delivery solutions for F&B, lifestyle and FMCG merchants in Southeast Asia. Founded in Hong Kong, Zeek has expanded its business presence to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, etc with customers that comprise global top-five F&B brands and fast-food chains, leading supermarkets and department stores, convenience store chains, online e-commerce and food platforms, etc.
Industry: Enterprise Software.
Founders: KK Chiu
Total Funding: $11.1M
Founded Date: 2018
9. Jobdoh
JOBDOH is an AI-based HR and Fintech solution offering end-to-end services from job search to payroll stretching for employers and employees. Featured by major press such as CNBC, they are 95X faster than the market average in fulfilling jobs, setting a record from job posting to arrival to under 30 minutes. JOBDOH also helps employers extend their payroll deadline and improve employee motivation via early wage access.
Industry: Human Resources, Employment.
Founders: Eric Fong, Xania Wong.
Total Funding: $12.5K
Founded Date: 2014
10. Cider
Cider is a direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce platform focusing on overseas markets. Its innovative approach to building community, reducing inventory waste, and shipping anywhere has made it a new favorite for a generation of digitally native consumers.
Industry: E-Commerce.
Founders: Michael Chen Wang
Total Funding: $140M
Founded Date: 2020
11. LeapXpert
LeapXpert enables enterprises to embrace messaging applications and integrate them to their business-critical applications. It resolves the business, compliance and regulatory challenges the rise of messaging applications’ use in business channels has created.
Industry: Fin-Tech, Insur-Tech, B2C.
Founders: Dima Gutzeit, Rina Charles.
Total Funding: $14M
Founded Date: 2017
12. AMMA Pregnancy Tracker
Amma is an international mobile service — one of the world’s largest communities for pregnant women and their families. It provides clear, evidence-based pregnancy information and personalized advice from professional gynecologists. AMMA’s active monthly audience exceeds 1.5 million people around the globe.
Industry: Healthcare.
Founders: Andrey Podgornov, Boris Shkolnikov, Eugene Zhikharev.
Total Funding: $4M
Founded Date: 2016
13. Honest Jobs
Honest Jobs provides flexible investment funding to local entrepreneurs. It is disrupting the inefficient and exploitative labor migration markets in order to eliminate conditions of forced labor. They do this by providing funds, mentorship, and connections to entrepreneurs who are building the recruitment firms that will ultimately make ethical recruitment of migrant workers the standard across Asia and the world.
Industry: Employee Benefits, Finance.
Founders: Scott Stiles.
Total Funding: $500K
Founded Date: 2021
14. Oddup
Oddup provides startup, investor, sector, and ecosystem data, insights, and analyses in 34 major cities across the globe. Oddup also provides cryptocurrency listings and price targets, ICO analysis, and the Oddup Indexes, which track real-time trends across the startup landscape.
Industry: Analytics, Finance.
Founders: Jackie Lam, James Giancotti.
Total Funding: $20M
Founded Date: 2015
15. Lynk
Lynk helps the world’s knowledge seekers, builders and sharers amplify the impact of business insights. Lynk’s platform unlocks the insights, experience, and expertise of experts from around the world, helping people and companies make better-informed decisions. Lynk’s customers include Fortune 500 corporations, the world’s leading investment houses, global family offices, top professional services firms, governments, and other organizations.
Industry: Information Technology.
Founders: Evan Xiao Han, Jennifer Li, Peggy Choi.
Total Funding: $33M
Founded Date: 2015
16. OneDegree
OneDegree is a technology company that aims to be the next-generation insurance industry leader in Asia. It is the first digital insurer candidate in Hong Kong with a fully digitized insurance process end-to-end. It also collaborates with global leaders in insurance and health sectors to deliver new technology and user experience.
Industry: Financial Services.
Founders: Alex Leung, Alvin Kwock.
Total Funding: $58M
Founded Date: 2016
17. BuyHive
Buyhive team finds and qualifies suppliers, ensures quality production, and delivers finished goods for buyers globally. Headquartered in the global sourcing capital, Hong Kong, with customers worldwide, BuyHive is the trusted partner connecting buyers with the right suppliers who can meet their standards of quality, reliability and compliance.
Industry: E-Commerce, B2B.
Founders: Brent Barnes, Michael Hung, Minesh Pore.
Total Funding: $2.4M
Founded Date: 2019
18. Amber Group
Amber Group is committed to serving clients around the globe by combining the best-in-class technology with sophisticated quantitative research to offer a streamlined crypto finance experience. Its goal is to optimize investment flexibility, maximize investment returns, and provide long-lasting value for their clients.
Industry: Crytocurrency, Fin-Tech.
Founders: Luke Li, Michael Wu, Thomas Zhu, Tony He.
Total Funding: $128M
Founded Date: 2017
19. Mellow
Mellow is a personal finance & digital payment solution for kids and parents, building kids’ money habits of saving, spending, and earning. It is the best solution for parents to teach their kids aged 6 to 18 the cycle of saving, spending, and earning in a habitual, practical, and educational way.
Industry: Financial Services.
Founders: Chester Szeen, Teresa Chan.
Total Funding: $120K
Founded Date: 2018
20. Easyship
Easyship is a leading eCommerce shipping platform that enables frictionless shipping and fulfillment for businesses of all sizes. Its innovative software provides the trusted tools to fulfill orders, scale growth and elevate customer experiences in any country. Easyship simplifies all things shipping into a single integrated dashboard, making it the favorite shipping platform of 100,000+ global merchants.
Industry: Logistics, E-Commerce.
Founders: Augustin Ceyrac, Paul Lugagne, Reuben Philip Abraham.
Total Funding: $4M
Founded Date: 2015
21. MioTech
MioTech is an artificial intelligence platform that empowers Sustainable Finance with environmental, social, governance (ESG) data and technology. By integrating more than 230 uniquely identified ESG data points with supply chain, shareholding, investments, and many other relationships, MioTech analyzes corporate social responsibility performances alongside key financial indicators.
Industry: Artificial Intelligence.
Founders: Jianyu Tu, Tao Liu.
Total Funding: $7M
Founded Date: 2016
22. Hanson Robotics
Hanson Robotics is an AI and robotics company dedicated to creating socially intelligent machines that enrich the quality of our lives. They are the creators of the world-famous Sophia the Robot. Its innovations in AI research, robotics engineering, experiential design, storytelling and material science bring its robots to life as engaging characters, useful products and as evolving AI.
Industry: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence.
Founders: David Hanson
Total Funding: $21.7M
Founded Date: 2013
23. Hyphen Group
Hyphen Group is a leading fintech company in Greater Southeast Asia, reaching over 10 million consumers per month and working with more than 220 financial institutions across six markets including Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.
Industry: Fin-Tech.
Founders: Alister Musgrave, David Hatcher, Gerald Eder, Tee Ming Chew.
Total Funding: $116M
Founded Date: 2014
24. FlyFarm
FlyFarm is an agri-tech insect protein production company. With in house developed technologies to enable the cost effective mass production of insect protein to displace the use of wild caught fishmeal in animal feed and aquaculture. FlyFarm processes organic food waste as feedstock for the rearing of black soldier fly larvae. The company operates production farms in Australia, with other countries in the region in development.
Industry: Agriculture.
Founders: Andres Crabbe, Constant Tedder, Robb Arnulphy.
Total Funding: $1M
Founded Date: 2017
25. Pulse iD
Pulse iD was founded in 2016 by Alex Topaloski and Shak Tiwari. Its clients are increasingly savvy with piecing together a customer’s online world via multiple streams of data. Pulse iD is helping enterprise clients to understand the space between their customer’s online and offline world. Its marketplace connects merchants to customers via banks, mobile wallets and payment networks.
Industry: Marketplace.
Founders: Alex Topaloski, Shak Tiwari.
Total Funding: $3.8M
Founded Date: 2016