5 in 5 minutes - April 28th

Alibaba launches US$3m start-up competition with Cyberport and HKSTP

Alibaba's Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund is working with Cyberport and Hong Kong Science and Technology Park on a US$3 million startup competition "Jumpstarter 2017" with the aim to help nurture the city's startup scene.

Jumpstarter 2017 will begin in May, the competition is open to startups from different sectors, including FinTech, wearables, IoT, AI, big data, robotics, healthy aging and smart city etc.

Hong Kong's LYNK raises $4M

LYNK, a Hong Kong-based startup that connects enterprise users to experts in a variety of fields, announced a US$4 million Series A round today. The round is led by the Hong Leong financial group, with the participation from Zhuhai Da Heng Qin (DHQ), CRE Venture Capital and  Wavemaker Partners, who led Lynk's seed round in 2015.

Founded in 2013, the company claims to have over 35,000 experts in 70 countries, including C-level executives, engineers, independent consultant and specialist advisors.

Oddup raises US$6M in Series A

Oddup, Hong Kong-based online research platform,  known as the "Startup Rating System", has raised US$6 million in Series A funding, in a round led by Brand Capital.   

Gobee.bike launches in Hong Kong

Gobee.bike, a bike-sharing platform, has launched in Hong Kong last week. The service will be available in New Territories, including Sha Tin, Tai Po and Ma On Shan. The company aims to cover most of Hong Kong by the end of 2017, including Kowloon, Discovery Bay, and Hong Kong Island.

Gobee.bike has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding in a round led by Swiss Founders Fund with participation from Cocoon Ignite Ventures, Lastminute Founder & Chairman Fabio Cannavale, Lamivoie Capital, Goldman Sachs alumni, and other individual investors.

Singapore Life raises US$50M, one of the largest Series A rounds for Insurtech startup

Singapore Life, an insurance technology startup in Singapore has raised US$50 million in a Series A round led by  Credit China FinTech and IPGL. The funding will be used to fuel the growth of the company.

The current funding brings Singapore Life's total paid up capital to US$51.2 million.

Korea's e-commerce company TMON raises US$115M

TMON (Ticket Monster), a Korea-based e-commerce platform, has raised US$115 million from Simone Investment Managers and existing shareholders. Simone contributed US$44 million to the current round. The funding will be used to power its mobile grocery and online low-cost flight deals services.

Launched in 2010, TMON is a daily deals platform that offers deals in different categories from over 15,000 merchants.

TMON has previously raised US$50.96 million from NHN Entertainment Corp, Insight Venture Partners and Stonebridge Capital.

Singapore sets up S$1B fund to help innovative companies

Singapore is creating a S$1 billion ($718 million) fund, named The Makara Innovation Fund, to assist innovative companies to develop their businesses.

The fund will be a collaboration between the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and the private equity firm Makara Capital Partners, they will invest S#30 to S$150 million in 10 to 15 companies over the next eight years.