Hong Kong Startup News Roundup - 3 November 2019

Hong Kong tops global IPO market since September

Hong Kong’s IPO market is making a huge comeback.

Defying the intensifying protests that have hurt the city’s economy from trade to tourism, Hong Kong’s has led the world in initial public offerings since the start of September.

The total value of first-time share sales at the Hong Kong stock exchange since Sept. 1 is $7.9 billion, overshadowing Nasdaq Inc.’s $7 billion and $3 billion at the New York stock exchange, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Anheuser-Busch InBev NV’s $5.8 billion IPO of its Asian unit and another billion-dollar-plus deal contributed to the lead held by the Asian financial center.

“The market has been volatile and challenging this year but we are now in a good window for IPOs in Hong Kong, ” said Alex Abagian, co-head of Asia Pacific equity capital markets at Morgan Stanley. “We are seeing a significant amount of quality capital being deployed towards good assets, primarily companies that are market leaders in their sector.”

Hong Kong Residential startup Dash Living secures $10M in Mindworks-led funding round

Residential start-up Dash Living is launching its first co-living project in Hong Kong after receiving commitments of $10 million in a pre-series A funding round.

The 51-room property on Carnarvon Road in Tsim Sha Tsui brings the five-year-old company’s portfolio to over 600 rooms in the Asian financial hub including serviced apartments, co-living spaces, and a boutique hotel.

The capital raised in the funding round, which was led by Hong Kong-based venture capital fund Mindworks, will be used to help finance the residential property manager’s expansion across multiple Asian markets over the next eighteen months, Dash Living founder Aaron Lee revealed to Mingtiandi.

WHub launches v.4 of the Hong Kong FinTech Ecosystem White Paper

WHub has teamed up with the key players of the startup scene to create the Hong Kong FinTech Ecosystem White Paper 2019. This White Paper provides you with key findings including: 

•  Why choose Hong Kong to startup
•  Exponential growth with 3,000+ startups
•  Growing, diverse ecosystem (you would be surprised)
•  Recent startups that raised funding
•  FinTech associations and events
•  Regulators and government support and initiatives
•  Community builders

•  Corporate - startup collaboration

Sign up to get the first copy here.

Ucommune said to file for US IPO in wake of Wework debacle

Mainland co-working operator Ucommune is said to have filed for an initial public offering with the US securities regulator and is targeting a public listing before the end of the year, according to media reports.

The Beijing-based shared office unicorn, which is WeWork’s biggest rival in mainland China, lodged a confidential prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in September, according to sources cited by Reuters.

The move by the four-year-old company founded by former China Vanke executive Mao Daqing comes just over a month after WeWork was forced to shelve its IPO due to investor skepticism over the company’s prospects and growing doubts concerning valuations for co-working operators.

Mao has been talking up his intention to list the company on the stock market since early 2018 and said he had decided to shelve plans for an IPO in the third quarter of last year due to market uncertainty.

Animoca participates in Agritech Startup Fasal $1.6 Mn seed round

Agritech startup, Fasal, raised seed funding of $1.6 Mn led by Omnivore and Wavemaker Partners. The IoT-SaaS platform will use the funding to build AI capabilities for each horticulture value chain where the company is focused.

“We are going to expand our B2B sales force, engineering and product teams, which will partner with aggregators, exporters, and processors in each horticulture value chain to access their networks of farmers. Very shortly, we plan to launch a low-cost and instantly installable version of our field sensor array. The long term plan is to be an end-to-end platform for horticulture,” said cofounder and CEO of Fasal Ananda Prakash Verma, while talking to Inc42.

Other investors participating in the round include Mount Parker Ventures and Animoca from Hong Kong and Mistletoe from Japan, via their Gastrotope accelerator. Existing investors Zeroth and Artesian Ventures from Australia also participated in the round.