FEATURED EVENT
|
Silicon Dragon
Hong Kong Nov. 16
(
early bird rate ends Nov. 7)
featuring
Keytone Ventures
500 Startups Fresco Capital
Click Ventures Gobi Partners Vickers Venture Chinaccelerator
1955 Capital
Hong Kong's
New Unicorns GoGoVan
SenseTime Group
China Business Models GoBee Bike
For Best Deals, Startups, VC Firms
(last chance)
Thanks to Our
Sponsors
|
NEXT EVENT Silicon Dragon Salon at China Institute New York City Dec. 13 SIGN UP From Bike Sharing to Blockchain: Can China Really Go Global? |
SPEAKING
GIGS
Global Angel Investor Summit Wuhan, China
Shanxi Province Entrepreneurship Service Summit Xi'an, China November 19
Pre-Money Investor Conference San Francisco December 5 IBA 2017 Investing In Asia New York City December 7-8 |
|
|
|
The buzz in tech and venture circles in Hong Kong today is about the emergence of home-grown Hong Kong startups that have reached unicorn or $1 billion-plus status in financing. Their names are instantly recognizable in these circles: logistics service
GoGoVan and fintech innovator
WeLab. Word is getting around too about artificial intelligence company
SenseTime Group, a third unicorn from Hong Kong -- and in the hottest sector today.
SenseTime entered the unicorn league when it raised $410 million in a Series B round this past July, giving it a total valuation of $1.5 billion. Now, SenseTime is getting ready to raise a next round of financing before the end of the year, and the amount could surpass its previous raise, co-founder and founding CEO
Dr. Xu Li (see photo) told Silicon Dragon in an interview in Hong Kong.
Read Forbes: Hong Kong Senses Unicorns
DEALS
Lightspeed China and
Sequoia Capital China have invested $58 million in China's checkout-free store,
Xing Bian Li - a sign of things to come in retail outlets. Adding to this growing "smart retail" sector,
GGV Capital backed
Citybox with $15 million.
China is once again leading the way with new innovations, this time making unmanned convenience stores popular. VCs are bettng big on staff-less convenience stores.
Apple
is acquiring New Zealand-based PowerbyProxy, a spin-out from the University of Auckland. The startup works on wireless batter charging. This deal is a major score for New Zealand innovation, which Silicon Dragon has covered. Read Forbes, Kiwi Ingenuity.
SPOTLIGHT: On The Trail
Silicon Dragon's Rebecca Fannin moderated a panel that paired up founders with their investors for a check on how things are going at the startup. Here at the Cyberport Venture Capital event on Nov. 1 are Chibo Tang, Gobi Partners; Denes Ban, OurCrowd; Shuonan Chen, Agile VC; Toby Olshanetsky, Proov; Sheffeld Wang, Rescale and Raphael Cohen, Gobee Bike.
At the SoCal Innovation Forum in Los Angeles, Silicon Dragon's Fannin was at the moderating helm again Nov. 4, orchestrating a Hollywood-China investor and production panel with Julia Pierrepont of Pierrepont Productions, Luke Xiang of Smart Cinema and Tracey Chen of Warner Bros.
Online peer-to-peer lender Hexindai from China jumped in its U.S. trading debut on Nasdaq. Its Chinese rival Qudian went public on the NYSE just two weeks prior and also did well, only to see shares tumble later. Meanwhile, PPDai plans to raise $298 million in an U.S. IPO before mid-November.
|
GGV Capital partner Jenny Lee made it on the Forbes list of the 18 most powerful women in tech. She covers frontier tech for the U.S.-China VC firm and is based in Shanghai. Plus, she's tireless! Jean Liu, president of China's Didi Chuxing (think Uber) also made the list. So did Lucy Cheng of Alibaba and Solina Cahu Hoi Sheun, Li Ka Shing Foundation.
VIEWPOINT
How Crypto and ICOs are Touching Hardware
If you don't know what we're talking about, read this column by Benjamin Joffe, a partner at HAX.
|
|
* VIP Invites * Event Tickets
With Edith Yeung, 500 Startups and Helen Zee, HKSE in Hong Kong. |
|
|