{"id":1673,"date":"2014-12-21T20:24:49","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T12:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.www.innovationiseverywhere.com\/?p=1673"},"modified":"2014-12-21T20:24:49","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T12:24:49","slug":"hong-kong-startup-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/hong-kong-startup-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong startup scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

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2014 has definitely be a bumpy year for Hong Kong. Since 1997 and the end of 155 years of British rule, \u00ab\u00a0Asia’s world city\u00a0\u00bb has been trying to remain independent from China, which is all but a given.<\/p>\n

To be clear, Hong Kong is still not China, from a culture, mindset, freedom, ease of doing business perspective, it’s two countries. But the border is small, and the projects of the Chinese government to merge it with neighboring Shenzhen and Guangzhou may not be only bluff.<\/p>\n

Since 2009, Hong Kong knows a true tech revival, and, to the contrary of so many emerging markets, without any help of the local government, better known for its laissez-faire policy.<\/p>\n

A few events such as Startup Saturday, the first coworking space (Boot HK) have launched after an embryo of a tech community felt they needed more than a bar to do their meetups, and since then, other coworking spaces, accelerators, and even government initiatives have been popping up all across the city-state.<\/p>\n

Where it becomes really interesting is that the two traditional strengths of the Hong Kong economy have turned digital.<\/p>\n

On one hand, manufacturing has seen many startups launch, from Makibox and its cheap 3D printer to Protei and its DIY, open-source boats. Shenzhen is not far and you can feel the hardware culture is very strong.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, bored bankers, whose reputation has been stalling since the financial crisis, turn into entrepreneurs. Startups such as 8Securities (social media + trading), WeLend (P2P real estate loans) have all raised around $10m.<\/p>\n

A few success stories also have helped from CMS Strikingly to local buzzfeed-like 9Gag.<\/p>\n

Overall, it’s fair to say the local community is very vivid, organically grown with little to no support from the state (except very recently), so visiting HK is usually made of authentic encounters with entrepreneurs who made it with their guts.<\/p>\n

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PROS<\/strong><\/h3>\n