In addition to enabling cryptocurrency transactions, app users can send fiat currencies for free and in real time.

Spending money may already be a breeze, but four guys found the perfect way to save up to $40 per $500 money sent globally. Startup Monaco has pioneered its way through the complex world of cryptocurrency by allowing users to buy, exchange, and spend cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum at perfect interbank exchange rates.

Founded by CEO Kris Marszalek, CFO Rafael Melo, CTO Gary Or, and Managing Director Bobby Bao, Monaco aims to become the card of choice for consumers, replacing their current debit or credit card. According to Marszalek, Monaco App users will have the ability to buy and exchange cryptocurrencies, as well as send currency (both crypto and fiat) to each other for free and in real time with funds being available to the recipient instantly and accessible through their Monaco Card at ATMs and POS globally.

The Switzerland-based company, with offices in Hong Kong and Singapore, has recently rolled out its Monaco Visa Platinum prepaid card crafted with metal composite. To date, Monaco raised USD26.7m and is being rolled out in Asia, Europe, and North America. Marszalek said that they are bidding to build the first global blockchain financial institution and consumer brand. In fact, its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in May 2017 placed the startup in the Top 10 Token Sale Events of 2017 at the time.

All Monaco founders bring extensive expertise to the table, with backgrounds ranging from entrepreneurship to operational experience, product design and architecture, and TMT investment banking. Marszalek has a track record of being able to grow his companies twice from USD0 to USD100m in revenue.

“Monaco strives to put cryptocurrency in every wallet. We believe firmly, that the size of blockchain wave in terms of disruption and impact is going to be as big as the internet wave and smartphone wave itself. With compliance and customer experience design as its two strongest foundations, Monaco is perfectly positioned to ride this massive wave and become a globally respected consumer brand in the process,” Marszalek said.

Monaco’s mantra is to develop an emotional connection with its clients, and grow its offering to a very small number of high-impact financial products that are simple, honest, and useful in terms of improving people’s lives. “We are the serious guys in the exciting, intriguing, and sometimes controversial world of cryptocurrency. We choose to be measured, plan very well, and execute furiously. There is little to no space for crazy stuff when you want to roll out a financial product globally,” Marszalek added.

Users can already choose from more than 6,000 providers.

When one Hong Kong woman lost her keys and was locked out of her home at 2 AM, she avoided the hassle of waiting till morning to phone a locksmith through the on-demand services mobile app OKSir. There, she was matched with a service provider willing to fix her problem quickly at an agreeable price.

“We actually arranged a keymaker in 30 minutes to her doorstep," said Arun Kapoor, CEO and founder of OKSir, which went live October in HK, the app's first regional territory and its new headquarters in East Asia.

The mobile app, which is available in Android and iOS, was born in India, where it is available in five major cities and fulfills up to 3,000 service needs daily.

In HK, OKSir users can already choose from more than 6,000 providers alone that offer upwards of 300 services spanning errands, events, finance and legal, healthcare, travel, professionals, beauty and housekeeping.

"We are the Uber of services,” said Kapoor, referring to the popular mobile app that connects riders with driver-partners.

This robust provider pool has helped draw investor interest to OKSir. This includes C.P. Batheja, managing director of electronics and telecommunications conglomerate Conplex International Ltd, who Kapoor said has personally committed a US$5m investment in the Hong Kong version of the app.

The HK version of OKSir is not a copy of the original in India. There are some HK-exclusive services such as Chinese fortune-telling, China visa processing, Chinese medicine therapy, and postnatal care.

With what the company sees as a successful foray in Hong Kong, it said "an expansion to the world is in the works." Its HK base of regional operations now employs a team of more than fifty qualified local talents in Hung Hom, which the company expects to increase in the coming months.

Sharing his vision for OKSir, the CEO said the app tries to address the concerns of people who find it difficult to find service providers, those who have just newly arrived in a city and do not know whom to rely on, and want providers with quality, reasonably priced work.

The company said households across the city, especially those with needs to take care of the elderly, stand to benefit a great deal from OKSir, as the app places great emphasis on elderly support with respect to the city's aged economy.

Kapoor said the company launched in Hong Kong due to the readiness of the market to spend online, citing how nearly 9 out of 10 smartphone users have researched a product or service online, he said, and that 11% of the total salary of Hong Kongers is spent on domestic services.

But beyond tapping into a growing market in HK, OKSir found it important to attract more qualified service providers. The company established the OKMen platform, a training and rewards membership of sorts. Providers can join the network can boost their branding without shelling out cash for marketing, Kapoor said, and can be assured of receiving fair prices for their services as well as training and certification opportunities.

“All vendors are screened for legitimacy, service quality, and professionalism, and receive training in uniform operating procedures, adding a much-needed degree of trust for customers.” said Kapoor.

OKSir also has a unique ranking and feedback system, which lets vendors know if they’ve performed their tasks well and discover areas of improvement.

The company said service vendors in HK have reported a significant increase in business opportunities and engagements, particularly among those who have very few promotional avenues.

Apart from independent contractors, a number of service companies have also signed up for the platform. Among them are Far East Laundry Group Limited, WaiKa Dry Cleaning and Laundry, Wah Sing Environment Engineering Company, Pestokill Pest Specialist Limited, Environmental Energy Pest Control Company, and One and One Cleaning Services Limited.

Meanwhile, on the app user side, OKSir packs a lot of conveniences: It accepts several modes of payment and available 24/7 service. The app also claims to have the widest reach in all service categories, making it a “one-stop shop” for service seekers.

And for Kapoor, OKSir’s mission of "enriching daily lives of people so that they can spend quality time with their families," is something that each and every employee strives to achieve - starting with himself.

"I myself drove as a driver when we started,” recounted the CEO and founder, “We were short on drivers and it was an urgent need." 

Want to gift money, at little to no cost, to someone overseas for their birthday?

Founded in Hong Kong, Smart Transfer is a person-to- person mobile payment platform that enables international social payments across multiple currencies at no charge to users. Aside from bank accounts, Smart Transfer allows international money transactions to be made to any phone number, email address, or social media platform. This is something that the existing remittance business model cannot accomplish yet, as it remains to charge high fees and makes clients wait for long hours before the cross-border remittance is completed.

Francis Lu, chief executive officer and co-founder, Smart Transfer, says that they not only support remittances, but also social person-to-person payments in multiple currencies across six countries: Hong Kong, Singapore, US, UK, Indonesia, and Australia. Smart Transfer further leverages technology through a built in chat bot that leverages AI-based natural language processing technology to support English, Chinese, Japanese, and Indonesian.

Smart Transfer uses the peer-to-peer payment platform that hinges on the tagline “Money transfer without borders” and is based upon four key tenets: fast, free, safe, and anytime. They offer free domestic transfers and make money from foreign exchange spread when users remit overseas.

Lu founded Smart Transfer with chief technology officer Ajeesh Sadanand. Both of them were well-paid bankers with extensive industry experience in Singapore and across the region. Their travels helped them observe various difficulties of money transfer in many countries, in particular the capability of most apps to service transactions within a single country and sometimes, through a single platform. Lu and Sadanand then saw a unique business opportunity to create a holistic money transfer app that could attend to customers’ varied needs.

“Instead of complicated bank account numbers and SWIFT codes, Smart Transfer enables users to send money to recipients via a variety of channels such as their mobile number, email, or any social media account. In peer-to-peer transfers, senders are matched with a counterparty sending money in the opposite direction. This enables users to effectively trade currencies with each other, leaving financial institutions and service fees, out of the equation,” Lu adds.

To date, Smart Transfer has raised S$1m in seed funding and they are now looking to raise Pre-Series-A round. Lu says that they are in the midst of plans to make Smart Transfer available to more than 30 currencies in 212 countries by the end of 2017. In the long term, they aim for Smart Transfer to become a full digital bank by 2019, slowly achieving it by offering other financial services such as P2P lending and merchant banking by 2018. 

Imagine merging everything in your wallet into an app.

A new app called Gini is granting that wish of being rid of stress from managing one’s finances. "People’s wallets are swollen with credit cards and loyalty cards, and their phones are full of different apps to manage these. This is making many people feel unhappy and stressed," says Victor Lang, founder and COO of the app Gini.

He shares that Gini's goal is to combine everything in your wallet into an app, from credit cards to bank accounts, from loyalty cards to discount vouchers, and to streamline the entire process of receiving rewards.

"What makes our software unique is that we will be able to provide personalised and targetted discounts or rewards to users based on existing transactions and spending patterns," notes Lang. "After the user accepts the discount in the app, they will be able to use one of their linked credit cards at a merchant, and the rewards will automatically be deposited into one of their accounts. No more QR codes or vouchers."

Lang and the rest of the team behind Gini were motivated to develop an app that helps people save money and manage their financial lives. "The name of our company Gini is named after the famous economic Corrado Gini, who is famous for developing the Gini-coefficient, an index that measures income equality. A Genie is also something that gives people what they want effortlessly," he says.

The name reflects the team’s desire to help users get more from their money with little effort, their contribution to levelling the unequal playing field the Gini co-efficient has identified.

Gini chose data aggregation specialists eWise to safely and securely aggregate the app’s sensitive financial data and implement artificial intelligence-based categorisation technology to analyse users’ individual spending patterns.

Senior members of the team are a mixture of bankers, marketers, developers, and entrepreneurs. Lang is a former Top 25 under 25 Entrepreneurs in Asia (BusinessWeek Asia, 2006), and is principal of CV Ventures. He is a serial entrepreneur and investor, recently exiting Restore Flow Allografts, a biotech firm sold to LeMaitre Vascular.

Ray Wyand, founder and chief executive officer, is a former VP at Citibank, part of Global Credit Trading Business based in Hong Kong. He was educated at King’s College London. Calvin Lang, founder and chief product officer, is a former chief science officer at the largest private diagnostic lab in Hong Kong. Calvin is a specialist in product/software development and biotechnology.

Fung Lim, director of business development, came from MWI Digital Marketing Agency and Groupon Hong Kong where Fung was team leader and a top producer. Ryder Lee, chief technology officer, is a former CTO of Ikky and manager at Samvo Group, bringing to the team almost two decades of development and management experience.
 

The company’s initiatives benefit the environment as well.

En-trak is an award-winning real-time energy monitoring system designed and proven to help businesses. It aims to help clients optimise energy efficiency, reduce energy costs, and enhance their green efforts.

Vincent Chow, En-Trak’s founder , says they take a "hardware+software+consultancy” approach. “Most energy management systems are designed only for engineers, yet performance depends on the decisions and behaviours of many,” he says. “That’s why En-trak is designed for everyone — we make energy management simple.”

Chow is a Singaporean who has a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering (University of Salford) and a doctorate in Philosophy (Newcastle University). His business believes everyone can play a part to contribute positively to the environment, if only they are empowered with the right information and tools.

“That's why we take upon ourselves to design simple and beautiful solution to enable every occupant in any building and office to become an active contributor to drive behavioural changes, improve operational efficiency, and reduce energy wastage,” shares Chow.

En-trak’s journey started in 2008 under Evergreen Power Limited (EPL) exporting solar and wind power products to Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Soon after, they began to do engineering and contracting works and undertook numerous notable projects for prestigious clients such as MTRC, China State Construction, and Housing Authority.

In 2011, Chow says, they introduced the “Solar for School” program when the HKSAR Government initiated the Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF) to encourage local schools to install solar panels on roofs. “However, we wanted to further engage the students together with the teachers around energy conservation," notes Chow.

Then in 2012, they developed their first real-time Energy Management System for School to inspire and engage students to understand when, where, and how they are using electricity in their school. This concept achieved instant success and was quickly adopted by hundreds of schools in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau.

“Emboldened by the positive market feedback, we further developed an enterprise version in 2013,” says Chow. This was awarded the Hong Kong Green Innovation Award. En-trak was formally incorporated in August 2013.

They are continuing their mission to build innovative solutions to create a more sustainable future including En-trak Paper Management System to encourage users to reduce paper wastage.

For future plans, En-trak recently launched its Smart Lighting product, a revolutionary, enterprise-grade lighting control solution designed to enable companies and building owners to automate, optimise, and reduce their lighting energy consumption.

“It unlocks the potential of your lights and brings it into the Internet of Things (IoT),” says Chow. He describes it as simple and cost-effective, with the En-trak Smart Lighting app in iOS and Android allowing a person to wirelessly control their office lighting via any web-connected devices.

En-trak also plans to expand its business beyond its Hong Kong and Singapore office to the APAC region.
 

The app has a current database of 6,000 medical practitioners.

FindDoc, Hong Kong’s first multilingual, centralised online healthcare information and appointment platform, has been creating a comprehensive system since 2012. It aims to contribute to the development of a supportive medical ecosystem. The booking app has the function of real-time appointment booking, providing users convenient and flexible access to professional medical information and services.

Explaining what motivated him to develop the app, FindDoc CEO and founder Ivan Ng says it was founded in 2012 to honor a friend, the late Hong Kong business leader Mohan Mahtani. When Mahtani sustained a serious concussion and fell into a coma, “his family desperately tried to find leading neurosurgeons but found that information was not readily available,” says Ng.

He notes, “Our team was determined to provide an uncompromised class leading system – one that would be intuitive to use for patients, as well as helpful and effective for medical practitioners and their businesses.”

Aside from a database of 6,000 medical practitioners, FindDoc has over 400 videos made in collaboration with more than a hundred healthcare professionals on its video platform FindDocTV. At the same time it is a partner of the Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital and offers free faecal occult blood tests to users aged 45-65. FindDoc is also working closely with Silence, a non-profit organisation that serves the hearing impaired.

FindDoc has 4.3m visits per year.
 

Membership is growing 20% week on week.

Hong Kong is home to some of Asia’s most exciting dining and after-hours venues. With a bevy of trends entering the marketplace, from microbreweries to molecular gastronomy, choosing the backdrop for your next social gathering can sometimes be daunting.

Enter Happy Owl, a new subscription based app which allows subscribers to redeem one drink everyday at any of their partnered locations for a monthly fee of $199.

“We combine technology innovation and marketing tactics to provide a platform and solution to drive more traffic to bars and restaurants at a very low marketing cost to a very targeted audience, who love to eat & drink,” said co-founder Cassie Mak.

Walk into any of Hong Kong’s hip establishments, and your standard cocktail will set you back at least $100. Happy Owl subscribers can redeem one drink every day for
a monthly fee of $199. If that sounds almost too good to be true, users can also unsubscribe at any time without penalty.

The app’s founders handpick each venue and the easy-to-use interface can help you choose any of its partnered venues based on your location. There are 51 partner establishments across eight districts in Hong Kong. A rapidly expanding list of noteworthy locations include Bitters and Sweets, Jerry Maguire, Cé La Vi, and Ammo.

“We offer great value proposition to our members, with the price of 2 drinks, they are able to redeem 30 drinks within a month. Our member subscriptions is growing at a rapid rate of 20% week on week since we soft launched in May 2016,” said Cassie

Subscribers can select their libation of choice right from the convenience of their mobile. Once the venue is selected from the app, a list of available drinks appears on
the screen. Users simply pick their desired tipple and hand it over to a staff member to redeem.

The founders

Cassie founded Happy Owl with friend Daniel Cheng. Daniel has six years of experience in Hong Kong and US technology startups, specialising in product management and business development, such as FindDoc and Purpella. He is a co-founder of StartupsHK, the pioneering startup community.

Cassie, meanwhile, has six years of experience in equity sales and trading at investment banks including UBS and Citigroup. She is the founder of mamahen, a gift registry platform for mothers-to-be with more than 1,500 products & 40 partners across Asia Pacific. She is a co-founder of GENIE, a temporary staffing platform in Hong Kong, developing strategic partnerships.