Hong Kong Startup News Roundup - 6 September 2020

Allied Wallet acquires one of the largest Hong Kong FinTech companies

Allied Wallet, that used to be recognized as a global FinTech company for offering various payment solutions in more than 196 countries, had previously announced that they had acquired Epayment. E-payment is regarded as one of the largest financial technology companies in Hong Kong. Allied Wallet has shown record-breaking growth for over a decade in the digital payments and Fintech space. However, in the past year alone, they have expanded their offering in a countless number of countries including that of Indonesia, Malaysia, Spain, Vietnam, Peru, and many more. Their goal is to connect more buyers and sellers globally and thus, allow the people to transact with whichever payment method they prefer.

Allied Wallet has always been looking for ways to upgrade their own system in terms of safety and security in order to make sure that they are able to come up with the best services in this industry. As a result, Allied Wallet has come across the E-payment which happens to be a successful firm in Hong Kong. The CEO says that the way through which E-payment has hold the market in that place was pretty impressive and that’s when he decided to combine the Allied Wallet’s services and products with that of the E-payment’s. 

Hong Kong shrugs off social unrest, coronavirus impact to edge closer to top 10 in global innovation rankings 

Hong Kong has moved up two places to find itself just outside the top 10 in a global league table for innovation, shrugging off the triple blow of US-China trade tensions, social unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Eleventh overall – its highest ranking since 2016 – Hong Kong retains third place in Asia, falling behind long-time regional rival Singapore in eighth, and South Korea, which joins the top 10 for the first time.

Singapore’s inclusion of women as “knowledge workers” was one area where it outshone Hong Kong, according to Dr Bruno Lanvin, executive director of global indices at Insead and co-author of the index.

“And Hong Kong is much weaker than Singapore on knowledge diffusion, which measures the proportion of intellectual property in the exports,” he said in an interview.

Unveiled on Wednesday, the 13th edition of the Global Innovation Index report is co-published by Cornell University, Insead business school and the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization.

Hong Kong’s ranking has improved for the third year in a row, after it plunged to its lowest position of 16th in 2017. But the current ranking is a far cry from 2010, when it peaked at number 3 globally.

Biopharma startup Triumvira Immunologics raises $55M - Hong Kong investors

In another example of Austin’s growing bioscience and medical-technology sector, biopharmaceutical company Triumvira Immunologics Inc. announced Aug. 27 that it had closed a $55 million series A funding round.

Leaps by Bayer, an investment arm of global pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG of Germany, and Maryland-based Northpond Ventures LLC led the round. Hong Kong-based Oceanpine Capital and Viva Biotech Ltd. of Shanghai also participated. Existing investors include Toronto-headquartered investment banking firm Bloom Burton & Co. Inc. and the Montreal-based Centre for Commercialization of Cancer Immunotherapy.

The new capital, which will provide sufficient funding “to mid-2022,” would be used for “getting our lead program into clinic as soon as we can," Lammers said. Human clinical trials are scheduled to begin next year.

Winners of Techstyle for Social Good International Online Competition 2020 announced

The Mills Fabrica announces the winners of the Techstyle for Social Good International Online Competition 2020, co-organized with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Now in its second year, the Techstyle for Social Good Competition supports and celebrates techstyle (technology and lifestyle) innovations from students and graduates from around the world focusing on apparel/textiles and agri/food tech (a newly added category for 2020). Designed to encourage young innovators to apply with their ideas and solutions that are making a positive impact on society for the greater good, the competition saw over 100 submitted projects worldwide from Hong Kong, the US, UK and more.

The Prize Winners

• Techstyle Grand Prize: Tômtex
• Techstyle Special Prize in Apparel/Textiles: Mitt
• Techstyle Special Prize in Food Tech: AquaTech - Immortality Indoor ECO Aquaculture System
• Techstyle Community Prize: Advanced Sous-vide Aseptic Packaging

All of the winners will receive essential support to develop their projects including residency at The Mills Fabrica in Hong Kong with mentorship, access to flexible coworking space, use of Fabrica Lab for prototyping and experimentation, attend and participate in industry events with The Mills Fabrica’s partners and community, showcase opportunities, and a cash prize.

Cosmose AI lands €12.5 million Series A to help stores predict foot traffic

Warsaw and Shanghai-based Cosmose AI, the platform that predicts and influences how 1 billion people shop offline, today announced the completion of a €12.5 million Series A investment round, valuing the company in excess of around €83.4 million. The Series A round was led by institutional capital from Tiga Investments, OTB Ventures and TDJ Pitango, supported by a number of ultra-high net worth individuals in Asia.

Founded in 2014, Cosmose harnesses anonymous mobile user IDs and high precision location data to empower some of the world’s most prominent companies including LVMH, Richemont, Walmart, L’Oreal and Samsung. The Cosmose platform gathers anonymised data on consumer behaviour to help retailers inform their sales and advertising strategies, retain their customer base and improve the shopping experience of customers in their stores. 

Following their seed funding in 2019, today’s Series A reflects the business’s commercial momentum with retailers in Asia in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the easing of local lockdown restrictions. Earlier this year, the Cosmose platform gathered data from over 360,000 stores – including over 600 luxury and beauty brands and major shopping malls in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau – to assess how brands can recover from the fall in retail as a result of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.