The National Innovation Agency (Public Organization) or NIA took a group of potential Thai startups…
One of the National Innovation Agency (NIA)’s missions is to establish the linkage between Thai and Hong Kong startups as it sees that Hong Kong will be the future hub partner, along with Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
Hong Kong will be another channel to bring Thai startups to the Chinese market.
At present, Hong Kong has more than 2,000 startups with more than 18,000 members in the community and over 100 co-working spaces.
Mr. Pariwat Wongsamran, Head of Startup Thailand said the reason why Hong Kong has many startups because it is a strategic location linking Greater Bay Areas including Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Zhongshan, Dongguan, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing. It also links with China’s “One Belt One Road’ policy which will make it a gateway to Southeast Asia.
Hong Kong is also the global financial resources for AI and Fintech and it named itself as the World’s Most Valuable AI Company and the World’s largest FinTech Series A. In the past 4 years, FinTech ecosystem has had several interesting movements. During 2014-2016, venture capital (VC)’s investment valued at $370 million. But in the past 12 months, the investment has soared to $450 million. At present, there are more than 200 Fintech startups, most of them specialize in payments, WealthTech, RegTech, InsurTech, Lending and Crowdfunding.
Hong Kong currently has 4 unicorn startups, all of them have developed their own artificial intelligence (AI).
Hong Kong also has specific Acceleration Program such as Brinc, specializing in IoT and Hardware and called itself as ‘hands-on hardware’ accelerator. It has already invested in 20 startups. Zeroth AI is an AI accelerator specializing in Edge Computing, Natural Language, Autonomous Vehicles, AgTech and Human-Machine Interface Technology. It has the policy to invest $120,000 in exchange of 6% shares. SuperCharger is FinTech accelerator which has network of VC and mentors to penetrate Asian markets. The company also has space for startup to access Cyberport Hong Kong too.
Recently Startup Thailand in cooperation with Thailand Tech Startup Association recently took 24 Thai startups to participate RISE- Asia’s largest tech event in Hong Kong.
RISE is a sister event of Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech conference, which attracted over 60,000 attendees to the event last year. RISE has become Asia’s biggest tech event and also attracted leading speakers like Tan Hooi Ling, Grab’s founder, Takeshi Idezawa, CEO of Line Corporation, Hans Tung, Managing Partner of GGV Capital to event. Also, many active funds from Silicon Valley which seriously make investments in China and several successful startups like Alibaba Didi, Chuxing and Grab, and the famous Sophia the Robot also attended the event.
“We got updated of many interesting information at the event,’’ Mr. Pariwat said, adding that the session “The China Internet Report” pointed out that though only 55% of Chinese population could get access to the internet, but the number of smart phone users are three times higher than the US and mobile payment users also grows 11 times higher than the US.
“Hong Kong has several competitive advantages. But we believe that Thai startups are able to compete as well as partner with them,” said Mr. Pariwat.
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