UK lessons for Hong Kong’s upcoming virtual banks
In a significant move that is expected to shake up the city’s financial sector, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced in May that it has granted virtual banking licenses to eight entities, with an...
View ArticleOrder-ahead app Ritual upbeat on HK market despite unrest
Launched in Toronto in 2014, order-ahead app Ritual now operates in more than 50 cities in multiple countries including the United States, Canada, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia....
View ArticleHow an order-ahead app is building a P2P food delivery network
The food delivery market has been flooded with capital, paving way for the rise of a new batch of online platforms. As firms seek to stand out from the crowd, Ritual, a Toronto-headquartered startup...
View ArticleHow a pest-control firm aims to ride the Ag-biotech future
Given the growing concern and worries about climate change, investors around the globe are increasingly betting on a sustainable path in agriculture. Agriculture-related biotechnology, such as...
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How a China drone maker aims to make agriculture smarter
A drone farming revolution is on the way in China, a Guangzhou-based drone firm suggests, as it waxes eloquent on the benefits of drones that can help farmers monitor their crops better and also ensure...
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Future industry: Astroscale aims to remove junk from space
Astroscale, a company founded by Japanese Nobu Okada, has taken on a bold mission: to design and operate satellites that will remove man-made debris in space. The purpose of the undertaking is...
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Astroscale sees big role for itself amid commercial space race
For decades, space has been the domain of governments. But Astroscale, a seven-year-old startup that wants to clear space trash from Earth’s orbit, aims to be one of the first private companies to...
View ArticleLesson from the crash of two unicorns
The year 2019 has witnessed, among other things, the fall of two so-called unicorns, or startups valued at over US$1 billion. US-based shared working space provider WeWork, which at one point had...
View ArticleHow a UK-based startup is finding success with SME banking
As big banks have looked to de-risk their balance sheets and receded from SME lending, Britain’s OakNorth, a banking startup that specializes in providing business and property loans, is leveraging new...
View ArticleAirbnb takes in some lessons from WeWork debacle
Last week, I mentioned two startups — Tink Labs and WeWork — that either crashed or suffered major setbacks last year. Let us now take a look at Airbnb, the home-sharing rental startup that plans to go...
View ArticleCurrencycloud secures US$80 million from Visa, World Bank
Currencycloud, a Google-backed startup operating a fully cloud-based platform for business-to-business cross-border payments, has raised US$80 million in a funding round co-led by Sapphire Ventures and...
View ArticleSingapore launches licensing for cryptocurrency firms
Legislation requiring cryptocurrency firms to be licensed in Singapore has come into effect, making the city-state one the first jurisdictions to introduce a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency...
View ArticleHK blockchain remittance startup Bitspark shutting down
Hong Kong-based remittance startup Bitspark is closing operations next month, six years after its launch.Under its set-up, customer funds are converted into cryptocurrencies before they are transferred...
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Queue-it eyes Asia expansion amid online sales boom
(Second of a two-part series) “Virtual waiting room” technology firm Queue-it, launched in 2010 in Copenhagen, Denmark, provides a first-in, first-out online waiting system for transactional websites,...
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Queue-it applies ‘queuing psychology’ to help online retailers
(First of a two-part series) The coronavirus outbreak has sparked panic-buying in Hong Kong, with residents snapping up all the surgical masks they could find as well as daily necessities such as rice...
View ArticleWells Fargo invests in crypto monitoring firm Elliptic
San Francisco-based banking giant Wells Fargo has invested US$5 million in British startup Elliptic, a provider of risk management systems for the cryptocurrency sector. The investment came from Wells...
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Razer seeks license to open digital bank for youth in Singapore
Razer Inc. (01337.HK), which makes keyboards and computer mice for video game fans, has submitted an application for a digital full bank license in Singapore, doubling down on its expansion into...
View ArticleHow BlockFi is growing its ‘bitcoin lending’ business
Investments in cryptocurrency have remained broadly depressed through a prolonged “crypto winter” after 2018. While a growing number of crypto ventures and startups struggle for funding and survival,...
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HK image pushes homegrown AI startup to move to US
Tech entrepreneurs Taylor Host and Jamie Wilde, who have resided in Hong Kong for years, founded artificial intelligence startup Miro AI in 2017, using AI and computer vision technology to analyze...
View ArticleImpossible Foods raises US$500 mln in new financing
Plant-based meat firm Impossible Foods raised about US$500 million in its latest series F funding round despite the global coronavirus crisis and other market uncertainties. The financing round was led...
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