The app provides housekeeping, nannying and elderly care services.

Agentbong provides a platform to create a home care network for the community. Sam Ng, co-founder and CEO, says Agentbong provides three main categories of services – housekeeping, child care and elderly care to cater to different needs of a family.

"Firstly, our proprietary system simplifies and automates service coordination," says Ng on what makes Agentbong unique. "Secondly, we have our own procedures to professionally train and verify all of our registered service providers, that is, helpers and caregivers."

Ng and Agentbong co-founder and CTO Raymond Lee both have a very strong technology background, as well as a vast network within the social sector in Hong Kong. They realised that despite the exponential advancement in technology, there are still a lot of remaining problems in the society especially societal issues, including employment and ageing population.

Having decided to quit his job in 2014, Ng went on to start various ventures with Lee. After rounds of failures and pitches, one of their companies, Agentbong, successfully entered into one of the well known incubation programmes in Hong Kong, ran by Hong Kong Science and Technology Park. Agentbong quickly expanded the operations to Singapore six months after, supported by their Singaporean partner, Aili.

In creating Agentbong, the team basically kills two birds with one stone, says Ng: helping the unemployed, especially women, to find a source of income, and contribute to the healthcare sector in terms of elderly care.

"For the unemployed, Agentbong provides training to equip them with the necessary skills in confinement nannying, elderly care, and housekeeping," he says. "And today's healthcare system sees a bed crunch and a lack of healthcare professionals. Agentbong contributes to the continuity of care and enrich community care whilst helping to alleviate these issues for the healthcare system."

Ng shares how they have a client who is a doctor, and whose mother is 70 and in a very good condition. "He couldn’t find anyone to look after her mother in his stead," shares Ng. "What he needed from the caregiver is to accompany her to her dance class or high tea in a hotel, whilst all the other agencies could only provide nurses for procedures."

He says that after the doctor found out about Agentbong, he called them and they guided him to download the app. He realised that Agentbong has a wide range of caregivers with different skill sets. "Eventually he was assigned a caregiver who can cook very well," says Ng. "So now, she does not only have a companion but also a good home cook as well."

Ng reveals they are preparing for the next round of funding to speed up business development in both Hong Kong and Singapore.

"At the same time, we are exploring to expand into other APAC regions, such as Japan, which are suffering from an ageing population," he says.

It aims to improve the chances of reuniting with missing pets.

DOTT is a smart dog tag that replaces old, traditional tags and increases the chances of finding a missing pet. It creates a community and acts as a dog park in your mobile. A dot on a map shows location information, whilst the second “T” stands for location technology. “We make use of location technology and reunite lost pets with their family members,” says Ashley Tang, CEO, DOTT.

DOTT is based in Silicon Valley and Hong Kong, backed by well-established technology companies including a partner of Texas Instrument as well as world-class manufacturers. “Comparing with other existing tracking devices, DOTT is extremely small and light, only 7g and 1.5cm in radius, the battery life is more than 6 months,” notes Tang. “It makes use of existing pet owner communities, and help each other look for missing pets.”

Tang and DOTT co-founder/CTO James Williams started their initiative because finding missing pets has been rooted as the mission in their lives. “Our pets are our family members. One out of three family pets get lost in their lifetime, that is ten million pets in the USA per year. Only 10% are ever found,” shares Tang, a passionate pet lover who, during her childhood, had 10 pets that got lost. Williams, meanwhile, is a dog owner determined to develop new DOTT products which improve the quality of life for pets, their owners, and the community.

DOTT has won various startup pitch competitions, and was named as one of "The Best Kickstarter Inventions” by MSN Money. Tang says the DOTT team comprises pet lovers in Silicon Valley and Hong Kong, with proven entrepreneurship and corporate experience from Citibank, Linkedin, and Yahoo, amongst other companies. “We met each other in dog parks, we shared the same vision, and we founded DOTT,” she recalls.

Its Ampd Silo is innovative, safe, and highly reliable.

Ampd Energy is an award-winning energy storage company that ensures businesses and brands, as the founders say, see the light and stay switched on.

Co-founded by electric visionaries Brandon Ng and Luca Valente and based in Hong Kong, Ampd designs, engineers, and makes state-of-the-art, grid-connected energy storage systems.

The company’s Ampd Silo is on the cutting edge of energy storage. It uses 1,792 Li-ion batteries to store on-grid energy and can deliver backup power instantaneously. Several patents have been filed relating to the technology and materials used in the Silo.

According to Brandon Ng, CEO, Ampd Energy, two years of research and development went into creating Ampd Silo. “Its unique features lead the field and comprise one of the world’s most advanced and dependable energy storage solutions across home, commercial, and industrial applications,” he says.

Ng shares that the light-bulb moment for Ampd Energy was a blackout, during which he and Valente realised their motorcycle EV batteries could be scaled to power buildings. “From darkness came light, and compact, uninterrupted backup power supply for businesses and brands all over Asia, and beyond,” remarks Ng.

He notes that three billion people and millions of companies do not have access to reliable electricity. According to Ng, there are massive social, economic, and safety issues relating to power cuts, from machinery and offices being shut down to patients at risk in hospitals. He says currently the best solution available are diesel generators, which are huge polluters, can only run outdoors, are very loud, and require frequent maintenance.

The Ampd Silo is eco-friendly and has a zero transfer time, allowing users to back up mission-critical devices found in airports, emergency room wards, and data centres.

The business was started through a process of trial and error, as the founders painstakingly developed an on-grid energy storage system. Brandon and Luca had already worked on smaller batteries that would power their electric motorcycle; however, scaling up the battery and assuring it could be used in the most demanding mission-critical situations, with 100% reliability, required over two years of research & development and numerous patents.

Ng recalls that once the first iteration of the product had been developed, they reached out to their networks to find suitable Series Seed investors who would be interested in their technology. Numerous private individuals were eventually won over by the company vision and the first prototype, leading to US$3.7m in Series Seed funding. Series A funding is expected to be completed in Q3-Q4 of 2017.

Ampd Energy has been sourcing the best distributors in its focus markets and already has assigned distributors in Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Macau. The next steps are to run customer trials in these three initial markets.

Concurrently with the customer trials, Ampd Energy will continue expanding its distributor networks, with advanced talks already taking place in several Southeast Asian and African countries.
 

Wellness apps and wearables dominate.

This year’s ten hottest startups in Hong Kong have an average funding of over HK$17m.

This is our sixth edition of the hottest startups issue where we present notable and up-and-coming local startups. In compiling the list, we first looked at the startups we have
featured on our website, www.hongkongbusiness.hk, and we then filtered by amount of funding raised. Startups whose funding is not disclosed are not included, and they must have started operating in the last three years. We then checked our list with industry players to get Hong Kong’s hottest startups 2017 recommendations and to weed out those that do not make thegrade.

For this year’s list, the lowest funding is at HK$3.8m. We don’t claim that this is the most comprehensive list, and whilst we have tried to verify funding quantums, we cannot verify
all amounts declared. Nevertheless, we feel this list represents the most talked about startups in Hong Kong. Enjoy the read and send feedback to research@charltonmediamail.com.

Design watches you’d be proud to wear.

EONIQ, a custom watch brand founded in Hong Kong, describes itself as the first in the world to bring customised mechanical watches that are designed by users at the price point of a fashion watch.

“On top of offering selections for different watch components, we also enable users to upload their own designs and images so they can create truly unique watches,” says EONIQ founder Quinn Lai, himself a mechanical watch lover.

He and his team aspired to build a Hong Kong-based startup that addresses a global need. With none of the founders originating from any rich families, they all understood the pain in finding a truly unique, but yet affordable watch that they’d be proud to wear, shares Lai.

“EONIQ brings the originally luxury exclusive enjoyment of quality unique watches to everyone,” he says. “In addition, an easy to personalise watch with timeless quality makes EONIQ watches great gifts for special occasions.”

They sell the watch online to the global market. “We did an indiegogo.com crowdfunding campaign and raised more than US$466,000,” shares Lai.

Their indiegogo.com campaign said: “We are a group of watchmakers creating custom mechanical watches that are timeless but affordable. Unlike the mass-produced quartz watch you usually get for $200, EONIQ watches are handcrafted with a quality Japanese skeleton movement. We believe that everyone, regardless their background, should be able to own a timepiece that’s both unique and meaningful.

Buyers can design the watches online, and EONIQ can ship them internationally. Lai shares they had a client from the United States who wanted to design a watch using a personalised logo that his father created. “And we had made his dream came true,” Lai shares.

EONIQ was able to launch four new products, doubling the head counts, going on indiegogo.com and launching an offline store – all of these were done within 2 months, and without any backing by investors, says Lai.

Regarding future plans, Lai says EONIQ is focusing on the offline marketing of their Hong Kong offline store. “We might have other offline stores in other Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore and Indonesia,” he says.
 

Origami Lab's smart wireless wearable voice assisting ring uses bone conduction technology.

With the help of smartphone voice assistants such as Siri or Google Now, Orii enables users to make and take phone calls, send text messages, and handle daily tasks just by touching their ear. “It is the only wearable that puts the power of the smartphone on your finger,” says Kevin Johan Wong, co-founder and chief executive of Origami Group Limited.

The inspiration for the product was his visually impaired father. Wong hoped to create a product for visually impaired people so they can operate their phone through voice assistance. Orii is a current Cyberport on-site incubatee of the Cyberport Incubation Programme.

According to Wong, Orii is the first device to ever use bone conduction in a ring to transfer high quality sound into the user’s ear. “Orii changes the way we interact with our devices,” he notes. “Orii breaks us away from our screens: almost all our interactions with technology involve a screen. We are screen addicts, distracting us from our environment and from people around us. Orii is the first device to deliver screen-free technology in a wearable,” comments Wong.

He says there are compelling reasons why this is the right time for Orii to enter the market. Wong explains, “Wearable adoption is accelerating: what was considered a "fad" just a few years ago has become a global movement. Today in the US alone, 21% of online adults use a wearable device.”

With the wireless audio device or ‘hearables’ market forecast to exceed US$5b by 2018, Wong believes voice interface is coming. “Advances in voice interfaces means that we are on the cusp of a voice interface revolution.”

Other co-founders are Marcus Leung-Shea, chief operating officer of Origami Group, and Yan Shun Li who is the chief technology officer.
 

The cup tracks water and coffee intake using sensor and data collection technology.

Focused on empowering people to look after their personal well-being, tech start-up Groking Lab created the Ozmo Cup series. The smart cup and corresponding app track daily water and coffee consumption to achieve well-balanced drinking by taking into consideration users’ body type, activities, location as well as goals.

“Ozmo, part of “The Internet of Things” wearable industry ecosystem, works with activity trackers to coach people in staying hydrated before, during, and after exercise. Health institutes, providers, trainers, family, and caregivers can manage their clients and loved ones’ water intake accurately and remotely,” explains Serena Pau, chief executive of Groking Lab.

In terms of funding, they started with local angel investors and then moved on to a successful Kickstarter Campaign. The Ozmo Kickstarter raised over US$31,000, exceeding their US$25,000 goal.

Noting the importance of proper hydration, Pau says, “Over time, failure to drink enough water compounds health complications such as fatigue, joint pain, weight gain, and headaches. Kidney stone developments have been traced to lack of hydration. Dehydration has an increased health risk to aging adults, those battling illness, and individuals who have nutrition challenges.”

With clim8’s intelligent garment, wearers achieve regulated body temperatures whilst doing whatever activity in any weather condition.

The start-up’s wearable ensures thermal consistency and users’ comfort even during extreme weather. Florian Miguet, chief executive and co-founder of clim8, says they saw a tremendous need for intelligent clothing in the market. “It’s been evident from the beginning of human civilisation that people need to be warm when it’s cold and cooler when it’s hot. So here we are.”

Miguet believed that supported with some key strategic talents in the team they could make intelligent clothing a reality, much like what happened to the auto industry in the 1980s wherein cars began implementing electronics and sensors into their engines. “That one industrious idea drastically improved reliability, fuel efficiency, and engine lifecycles. Therefore, our team of accomplished engineers, textile experts, and scientists understood we had to implement electronics, digital experience, and edge textile construction into everyday garments.”

It is said that amongst activewear and sports brands, the insulation/thermal categories generate the most revenue. Yet despite heavy consumer demand, these garments still cannot monitor, activate, or regulate temperature for the wearer. “With this in mind, we intend at clim8 to disrupt these categories with a revolutionary new garment that can truly respond to the wearer’s specific needs,” says Miguet.

Pierre Mouette, chief technology officer of clim8, is an electronic engineer with ten years of experience in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Meanwhile, clim8 research & development director Julien Guéritée has a PhD in Human Thermal Physiology and over seven years of experience in developing thermal solutions on clothing. Miguet, on the other hand, has 15 years of experience in technical outdoor brands.

They are currently working on a new generation of clim8 intelligent clothing with lighter and smaller battery. There is a corresponding app for both iOS and Android that allows wearers to set their preferences. clim8 is a Cyberport off-site incubatee of the Cyberport Incubation Programme and received financial assistance of up to $330,000. 

It’s closing a first round of seed funding worth HK$15m.

The global marketplace for health and wellness products is filled with tons of products that oftentimes do not work, work incorrectly, or are plain harmful. The media’s endless supply of contradictory and confusing information adds to the hassle. Finally, whether it is food or fitness, the industry is often set up so that consumers never win, but always have to return for more. A new health and wellness platform called Qualitarian.co promises to do differently. Its main thrust is not to sell products and services, but provide solutions for consumers to upgrade their lifestyle.

Founded by Mikko Revonniemi, Qualitarian.co serves as a one-­stop ­shop for Hong Kong’s health and performance community. It claims of providing premium products and high-quality educational material through its online platform, Qualitarian.co. This is the current state, but the long-term focus is beyond traditional eCommerce.

According to Mikko, they only provide curated products and have developed strict guidelines on what can go into their store. One example is cane sugar, he said. “Sugar cane has nothing but damaging effects to your body and it can be easily replaced by better ingredients. There are no reasons to use cane sugar, so we have locked it out from Qualitarian.co,” explained Mikko.

They also focus on sustainable packing material and favor products that use recyclable materials over plastic.

Qualitarian.co is an evolution of established health and wellness platform Berrytime. The upgraded platform is managed by a professional team who selects each and every product made available at the store. It features over 1,000 products ranging from Personal Care, Healthy Home, and Biohacking. It offers free delivery to any location in Hong Kong.

According to Mikko, Berrytime was a 2-year project to test the waters and learn more about the Hong Kong eCommerce space in a “stress-free” environment. Now, almost two years later, he felt he had all the pieces of the puzzle, so he went ahead and rebranded to Qualitarian.co and began building the founding team. Prior to Berrytime, he co-founded and was the CEO of a US-based startup called Four Sigmatic - another pioneer in the wellness industry.

After Four Sigmatic, Mikko wanted to start from scratch again. He invested all his personal savings to Berrytime.com and got some seed funding totaling HK$ 1.5million. He was the only person working in Hong Kong and wanted to keep it that way, so he had to do everything by himself.

“If you really want to understand something, you have to get your hands dirty and do it yourself. And that’s what I did. While I could have used the funding to hire an army of people, and leverage on human capital, I believe the deep understanding I gained by doing everything myself is much more valuable now, when it’s time to scale up and move fast,” he said.

Since he was doing everything by himself, a normal work day can be pretty long. He often starts at 6am and finish in the evening close to midnight. “As a matter of fact, I have slept way more nights in the warehouse than at home. Obviously, it’s not always fun, but I felt it was something I had to go through to get what I needed for Qualitarian.co,” he said.

Mikko also added that they are planning to close the first round of seed funding amounting to HK$ 15 million in the next few of months.

It simulates a department store.

During an economic downturn, our survival instincts urge us to cut down on spending, but probably not on gift giving. A young entrepreneur, Justin Chung, believes that no matter how bad the economy, everyone needs gifts. Christmas will always come, there are always girls to impress on Valentine’s Day, mothers are giving birth everyday and businesses are always trying to impress their clients everyday. As such, after his fashion business in Australia failed during the financial crisis, he moved to Hong Kong in 2011 to be in the gift business. He founded GiftSomething which is billed as the world's first one-stop gift department store.

“Gifts are so embedded in the Asian culture. It’s not like the West where there is only Christmas. There is mid autumn festival, Chinese New Year, there are two Valentine’s Days in Hong Kong and giving gifts is part of life in Asia,” he said.

GiftSomething simulates a department store for gifts. It serves as a one-stop shop for gifts from everything you can think of like flowers and hampers to having a Michelin chef cooking a five-course dinner at your home.

Many of the products at GiftSomething are exclusively sourced around the world and could only be found on its platform in Asia. GiftSomething also acts as an omni-channel for a number of luxury brands.

In founding GiftSomething, Justin and the team want to solve two problems in the gift commerce.

After moving to Asia, Justin found that the gift commerce is a segmented market where you have to go to a florist to buy flower and somewhere else to buy your gift to go with the flowers. Also, they found it full of the same boring gift ideas.

“We want to disrupt the market by bringing new gift concepts and ideas,” he said.

The team behind GiftSomething has no programming or e-commerce experience. Yet, they managed to build a website themselves in two weeks so they could start the ball rolling to meet demands for mid-autumn festival. Three years after, GiftSomething has grown to be one of the most successful players in the industry. This mid-autumn festival, Justin shared that they are delivering a hamper every 50 seconds.

The company is currently self-funded with US$130,000, yet it is profitable with an estimated turnover of US$3 million this financial year.

The team is currently raising US$1million to ramp up operations and expand into Southeast Asia. They opened an office in Singapore on November 2015 and they are expanding into Malaysia by end of 2016.

“With the money raised, we plan to further expand into Thailand and Philippines where there is a high demand for our service,” said Justin.

Their services include listing creation and housekeeping.

Being a host on short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb can be tedious and time intensive. Therefore, a team of experienced entrepreneurs set up GuestReady with the mission "to take the hassle out of short-term rentals.”

GuestReady is a startup that professionalises hosting for short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb. Its service is aimed at Airbnb hosts and property owners with the goal to provide hassle-free hosting to help homeowners double their income. Services include listing creation, guest communication, housekeeping, laundry, and key management.

GuestReady keeps the unique aspects of Airbnb, and by doing so, the startup hopes it will not only provide ‘hotel-like services’ to the guests but will also create a listing that generates a higher yield for short-term rental properties.

The founding team consists of experienced ex-Rocket Internet venture executives from Zalora, Foodpanda, Wimdu and Kaymu who are all avid travellers so they understand the particular needs of a guest. However, they are always disappointed by either the listing, the host, or the service provided. The experience was simply not on par with that of a hotel. Hence, the idea to professionalise the short-term rental industry was born.

GuestReady was simultaneously launched last August 16 in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, London, Amsterdam and Paris.

By launching GuestReady globally, managing director of GuestReady Hong Kong Lou Chan explains that the startup leverages location-specific advantages and taps into economies of scale to keep costs at bay.

GuestReady chooses to have one co-founder that will lead each market. The co-founders personally manage multiple homes to gain insights and experiences on what it takes to be an outstanding short-term rental host.

“No single co-founders are in the same country. Daily Slack/BlueJeans/Skype banter and calls are just part of how we keep ourselves together as we sweep through our daily tasks of product, strategy, sales, marketing and PR,” said Lou.

Swiss Founders Fund, a seed and early stage investment fund based in St.Gallen, Switzerland, helped fund GuestReady.

The founding team

Alexander Limpert is the CEO. Before launching the company, Alex was a country managing director of Foodpanda in Taiwan and Philippines. He was once a management consultant at Oliver Wyman in London and has travelled to more than 50 countries for business and leisure.

Patrick Degen is the CFO. He founded Mindprep Ltd., one of the ‘leading’ publishing houses in Switzerland. He is a former financial advisor and auditor of KPMG and UBS Investment Bank.

Bertrand Desies is France’s managing director. He was recruited by Rocket Internet to launch Kaymu.com in Bangladesh. Bertrand was Rocket Internet’s internal consultant, spending time mostly in African markets.

Jonna Van Kalker is Netherlands’ managing director. She was working as a Strategy Consultant in Boston Consulting Group. Jonna was tightly hooked in the startup scene in Berlin, where she started her career with several ventures of Rocket Internet, and later became an Entrepreneur in Residence at Hitfox Group.

Wen Dee Tan is Malaysia and Singapore’s managing director. She began her career in ZALORA Malaysia as head of partnership & offline marketing. She then moved to become marketing & PR manager of HotelQuickly Malaysia. Her deep passion for the travel industry inspired Wen Dee to join the co-founding team of GuestReady, looking after Malaysia and Singapore.

Lou Chan is Hong Kong’s managing director. Lou was a part of Hong Kong’s founding teams of WIMDU and ZALORA. He also co-founded Captcha Media, a digital marketing consultancy in Hong Kong, where he advised leading companies in consumer industries in Hong Kong and China on their marketing strategy.

Idzwan Tan is Singapore’s city manager. He studied rocket science and was working as a senior design engineer at ST Aerospace, converting aircrafts for special purposes. As Idzwan loves building things from ground up, he is excited to bring the GuestReady experience to Singapore.
 

The 31-year old Briton shares stories of frustration and hope.

Candid Properties, billed as first agency in Hong Kong with 0% commission for clients, was started out by a 31-year old Briton who was frustrated at existing real estate agencies in Hong Kong. Alastair Hoyne, a former investment banker who moved to Hong Kong in 2009, complains that websites of realtors in the city had very few pictures or descriptions, which would result in a lot of blind dates viewing properties that for the most part, ended up being unsuitable. Moreover, he adds that the agents who were being paid primarily on commission were driven by their own personal self-gain and not helping others find something within budget.

 “It drove me mad that I had done all the searching, found the places myself and all the agents had done was fundamentally open the door to the property. I had to pay them half a month’s commission for nothing!,” he said.

As a result, Alastair decided there had to be a better process and created Candid Properties. It aims to make both property search and selling/leasing properties a little easier and less frustrating.

First, their website aims to give all the property pictures and features upfront. Alastair said that with their user-friendly website and detailed property information, they save clients’ time when making their property choices. Candid Properties’ relationship managers meanwhile will work with property owners to ensure that all the crucial information are provided in their listings to reduce their hassle in answering all the questions their potential buyer/tenant might have.

Secondly, Alastair noted that their relationship managers are paid to put customers first, and that their bonus scheme is paid and driven not just by sales but more importantly by their level of service.

Lastly, there is no commission to pay if clients buy/rent from their listings. Property owners are instead charged on fixed fees. On the residential side, 1% for sale and ½ month’s rent for rentals.

How it started?
As with other entrepreneurs, Alastair had difficulty to get the business off the ground. As a company using technology to scale/efficiency rather than a pure tech company and entering one of the most competitive sectors in Hong Kong, Alastair shared that he had to bootstrap the business on his own for over a year to refine the business plan, start building contacts and find good people who wanted to join.

“For the most part I self-funded the company with help from my family and friends, and also was very lucky to secure a leading investor who provided me free offices in return for equity, which saved me a lot of money,” he said.

According to Alastair, he was literally living off pot noodles and struggling to survive for a whole year. He earned some spare money by doing some acting work including filming a commercial for the HK Rugby 7s, stand in actor work for Chinese company marketing material and some other film set work.

“I bought nothing for myself the whole year, in fact I only recently replaced my shoes which were completely falling apart to the point where my socks would get wet from puddles. I can’t really tell you the sacrifices; I went from drinking at the pub to drinking beers outside the pub from 7/11 to ensure I could still spend time with friends. Some of my dogs were very ill that year as well, so they got their treatment first, my wife and I came second, I was just lucky she was working and helping to support the both of us,” he shared.

At times, Alastair confessed that he did feel that he might have to go back to industry, save up again and start again a few years later when he had more savings.

Candid Properties started out with around $1.5m HKD in funding. Although a lot of that has been spent already, Alastair said that they are now starting to generate revenue and hoping that within 6 months they’d be in the black and on the way to profitability.

According to Alastair, they aim to bring their service to the rest of Asia as soon as possible, to Singapore, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo.

“Thankfully, our primary investor has given us free offices in those locations as well so now it’s just about finding great people to work for us there who share our vision and desire to improve the traditional property sector for the better,” he shared.

Its flagship product, TrueSmart+ aims to be a smartphone replacement.

Being the owner of what he prides to be the largest Internet of Things (IoT) professional group on LinkedIn with over 23,000 members, French entrepreneur Laurent Le Pen understands the need of tech community for standalone gears like smartwatch. He explains that while other smartwatches need to be connected to the smartphone to become “smart”, the company’s product, Omate TrueSmart can push information by itself as a standalone device connected to the telecom network.

Laurent adds that the product can also be used as a GoPro remote display and can run any Android apps especially sport apps for outdoor activities. Omate TrueSmart, he said, doesn’t need to run with the user’s smartphone tapped on their arm.

World’s first Android smartwatch 

Omate is a tech platform ecosystem for the IoT and wearables allowing fashion and jewelry brands to design their own wearables. This company based in Hong Kong operates a vertically integrated Wearable Design Manufacturer. 32-year old founder and CEO Laurent registered the company on July 1, 2013.

The company’s flagship product, the TrueSmart+, is a smartwatch 2.0 which has been funded through Kickstarter. It became the fifth most funded project of the Design category in September 2013.

“We come from the mobile phone design industry and we reused our legitimacy as mobile engineers to create the world’s first standalone Android smartwatch,” says Laurent.

Laurent is a 500startups alum and has been involved in the Mobile Phone Design industry since 2005. He is also a mentor at Acceleratech, StartupGring and StartupSalad, and Laurent spends his time between Omate facilities in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Mountain View.

Omate raised over a million USD on Kickstarter two years ago while it was a two-month-old startup. Since then, the company has achieved $7m in revenue and teamed up with numerous distributors worldwide and set up strategic partnerships with the world’s largest jewelry company - Richline Group – a wholly owned Berkshire Hathaway company and French Haute Couture fashion House – Emmanuel Ungaro. The company enters 500startups (Batch 13 – Mountain View California) as part of its investors in the Silicon Valley.

Here's the first Chinese startup who won the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield competition.

When Talkbox, the first voice messenger app, was copied by many big technology companies, Heatherm Huang, who was one of the foundering team members, left the company and started his own. Introducing MailTime, an Open Messenger built with email technology. It’s email as quick and easy as texting, and messaging without forcing your contacts to all download the same app. 

According to Heatherm, the way people interact with emails today has changed dramatically, but the email experience has not. Users scroll through pages of copies, signatures, and metadata to find what they need. It’s all more reminiscent of the desktop paradigm than the modern mobile world. The MailTime Team wanted to build something different and open, so MailTime is a messaging service built on top of the open technology of email, that connects people and services.

“MailTime disrupts the traditional email. We believe mobile email is about communication, not “organisation”. Therefore the best email app resembles a mobile messenger, not a tool for typing essays and moving emails around. We reformat your cluttered email threads into clean bubble chats, get rid of all those signatures, repeated data and formats,” he says.

Heatherm stresses that people want what they are making because many of them download it on the spot once they are presented with the product. Just last year, with MailTime, he and his team became the first Chinese startup ever to enter into the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield competition.

Currently, MailTime has USD 3M of Angel Investments behind them.

Planning the move for now and the future

The company plans to include a Referral mechanism by adding an additional account wherein users must invite one friend to Mailtime or pay 99 cents; a Viral loop whereby Mailtime signatures are set by default to advertise Mailtime, providing ads in every email sent. In addition, Network effects, @Mention feature and future ‘Seen’ features are available only between Mailtime users, so the more people who use us the better it gets.

Finally, Service platforms, wherein users can use integrated services with their email contacts such as payment via MailTime which is also a good channel to acquire new users.

For startups wanting to be featured, send your message to Lee Anne Babierra at research@charltonmediamail.com
 

This company enters Hong Kong storage wars.

When Hong Kong was dubbed a “very crowded place”, many startups thought of providing additional living space for households. Entering the integrated logistic service, Boxful aims to revolutionize the traditional storage model by allowing their customers to visualize and manage all their physical items at the tip of their fingers, without ever leaving their home.

Founded by former investment banker Norman Cheung, 32, Boxful claims to be the largest on-demand storage service provider dedicated to convenient, affordable and secure self-storage for homes and offices in Hong Kong. For as little as HK$49 per box – the cost of a cup of coffee – users can place their physical belongings in secure storage that is easily accessible through Boxful’s intuitive mobile and online platform.

“We provide free door-to-door pick-up and retrieval services as fast as the next day. Customers can also keep track of their items and boxes by taking photos and uploading the images onto our online system. Very simply: Boxful is cloud storage for your physical items,” says Norman.

Unlike other self-storage companies, Boxful restricts any third-party access to their warehouse - this allows the company to save money on visual decoration and reinvest more money into their logistics and security infrastructure. As a result, Boxful offers a free door-to-door valet service (including pick up and delivery).

Boxful being a logistics company, Norman said they don’t take risks especially when it comes to their customers’ valuable possessions. He reveals that, “Shortly after launch, we found ourselves in a situation where our trucks could not meet the demand of our customers. The founders and the team had to take on the delivery responsibility, including spending the entire weekend running around town delivering and picking up boxes. We found this an extremely rewarding experience, because it allowed us to understand better the needs of our customers and gain insight in how we can further optimize our operations. The founding team still does delivery as much as possible,” says Norman.

Boxful was initially funded by its founders. Around the time of the company’s launch, they closed a seeding round of US$1.5m from a group of Greater China investors, including Antony Leung (former financial secretary of Hong Kong) and influential family offices and corporates in the region.

For startups wanting to be featured, send your message to Lee Anne Babierra at research@charltonmediamail.com

This company has built SaaS digital marketing systems for boutique hotels.

Funding your dream startup is not as easy as it seems. In fact, according to Perkins Ho and Ethan Wang, founders of Tavernlabs, Perkins even put all his money into starting the business. An electrical engineer by training, Perkins then sought help from his good friend Leonardo Wong, an experienced programmer, to help build the system. Eventually, Tavernlabs started off with only one programmer and had its beta launch to its first clients in less than 9 months. In less than a year, this company, which was inspired by the founders’ love of travelling, now has USD200,000 total funding at hand with the owner’s funds and Angel Investors such as Dominic Chan of Dark Horse Investment.

Tavernlabs has built a SaaS digital marketing system for boutique hotels (‘kezhans’) in China to enable their self marketing and direct-booking capabilities. The company’s flagship product is called Yunnke, and allows boutique hotels to cultivate their own clients on the cloud.

Perkins explains that, due to a lack of resources, about 98% of kezhans don’t have an online presence. These boutique hotels rely heavily on word-of-mouth and OTAs to sell rooms. Without brand differentiation in OTAs, they cannot compete with large hotels.

With Yunnke, these boutique hotels can now build a professional hotel website in 30 minutes and take commission-free direct bookings using the platform’s booking engine. Through Yunnke, they can also build hotel-specific features such as room features, a map showing nearby restaurants and points of interest, promotions modules and multilingual support. They are also able to control their own pricing, take reservations online, and be more proactive with promotions during the non-peak season.

According to Perkins, Tavernlabs aims to be the first company in China and Taiwan to run DIY commission-free direct sales via official hotel homepages. He explains that the Tavernlabs system will allow hotel clients to compete not just via traditional websites, but also in Weixin and Facebook.

After winning the Cocoon competitions for startups in January, Tavernlabs is focusing on perfecting their system and preparing to put more effort into sales and marketing in 2015, with a goal of reaching 500 clients.

_____________________

COMPANY PROFILE

Company Name: Tavernlabs (trading as Yunnke in China)
Founders: Perkins Ho and Ethan Wang
Website: www.yunnke.com
Total funding at hand: USD 200,000
Source of funding: Internal funding and Angel Investors 
Major investors: Dominic Chan of Dark Horse Investment 
Start of Operation: Company started in April 2014 

For startups wanting to be featured, send your message to Lee Anne Babierra at research@charltonmediamail.com
 

The company has raised USD20m in just a year.

WeLab has started to bring financial innovation to Hong Kong, and to provide an alternative to the market. WeLab operates WeLend.hk, which bills itself as Hong Kong’s first fully online lending platform, and Wolaidai, a mobile peer-to-peer lending platform for top-tier university students in China. WeLab is a team of innovative banking and technology professionals, utilizing the latest web and social data technology. The team is headed by founder and CEO, Simon Loong, 37, who specialized in risk management and data warehousing technology in his 15-year banking career before founding the company.

In 2013, the team started WeLend.hk, an online lending platform offering personal loans to the HK market with a seamless application experience, short turnaround times, and relatively low interest rates. With WeLend.hk, they are now working on solving sales financing issues with 3HK, a telecommunication giant in Hong Kong, to provide online instalment plans to their customers upon headset purchase.

In September 2014, WeLab team started operating in China as Wolaidai.com, a mobile P2P lending app targeting university students. Simon explains that China is a crowded space for internet finance, but they spotted the unfulfilled loan needs of university students and tailor-made the product to suit the segment.

Since its launch, WeLend.hk has acquired 15,000 members and maintained an accumulated application loan amount of over HK$1.15B. Wolaidai.com was launched for Android and the WeChat platform in September 2014, and has witnessed over 100 percent month-on-month growth for three consecutive months.

According to Simon, they are fortunate to be a well-funded startup with renowned investors from around the world. In their Series A round fundraising, WeLab raised US$20M from Yuri Milner of DST, TOM.com, Sequoia Capital, Ule.com and ICONIQ Capital. Simon adds that their investors not only provided the capital for their operations, but also shared valuable advice and networks with the entire WeLab team.

“It is very uncommon for a HK startup to raise such a big A round fundraising, and within such a short period of time. We are grateful for the support of the investors,” he says.