[Event Review] ICE PITCH @FinTech Startups

With the generous encouragement and solid support offered by our Sponsors and Partners, Incu-Lab successfully held ICE PITCH @FinTech Startups on Nov 4-7, achieving intellectual enlightenment and fruitful results as well as attracting attention from the Government and the media, such as the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (財經事務及庫務局) and TVB (arranged by HelloReporter)!

As part of the FIRST government FinTech Week (Nov 7-11) in Hong Kong organized by InvestHK, ICE PITCH @FinTech Startups is a ‘100-hour Hackathon + Pitching’ event organized by Incu-Lab. It aims at inspiring FinTech ideas and promoting the growth of FinTech startups and the ecosystem.

There were TWO TYPES of entry:

• ‘Team Entry’: innovative FinTech startup team (working on Asset Management, Capital Markets, Crypto-currencies, Financial Inclusion, Insurance, Lending, Payments, Peer to Peer, Platforms, Security & Authentication or anything related to FinTech) and looking for idea, business or technology breakthrough while creating social change
• ‘Individual Entry’: change-making entrepreneur / university student passionate about FinTech and looking for opportunity to collaborate with an existing FinTech startup

The entries are international and diversified. They come from different places around the world, such as France, Singapore, South Korea, China and Hong Kong. Most of them are full-time entrepreneurs while some of them are university students. Their businesses involve algo trading, payment gateway, crowd-funding, FX, coin exchange and many others.

During the Hackathon on Nov 4 – 7, individual applicants join into the vetted finalist FinTech startups to form teams, exchange ideas through group discussion and further improve their respective pitching decks (and demo if applicable). On Nov 4 (Friday), the finalist startup teams and individuals successfully matched at Playground and formed 9 teams. In the weekend on Nov 5-6 at Idea Lab, HKSTP, 6 mentors from FinTech, digital marketing and social innovation sectors offer insights and advice to further improve the teams. They included:

1. Jeffrey Au (Partner / Strategist / Care Taker, Incu-Lab)
2. George Cautherley (Partner, Angels & Incubators)
3. Eugene Chan (Lecturer in Social Media Studies & Former Social Media Head in Public Utilities)
4. Rafal Czerniawski (Co-founder and CEO, IC Studio)
5. Steven Lee (Founder & CEO, MoneySQ.com)
6. Ringo Mak (「350香港」聯合創辦人)

On Nov 7 (Monday), the teams have also conducted site visits at several technology companies:

1. iMasterRoom: Online education and e-learning platform
2. Insight Robotics: Robotics and big data analysis
3. Lalamove / Easyvan: Digital transportation platform for van and courier

The Final Pitch Day (Nov 8, Tuesday) took place at PwC, Central from 7pm to 10pm and attracted more than 120 people to attend as audience. Mr James Lau (Under Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury) and Mr Charles Ng (Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion, InvestHK), gave us their welcome note at the opening session. Apart form the pitching session, insight sharing sessions were arranged in which startup gurus and insiders were invited to share about their experience and insights on FinTech and startups. They and their sharing topics were as follows:

1. Eugene Chan (Lecturer in Social Media Studies & Former Social Media Head in Public Utilities)
   • Digital Marketing Trends in FINTECH sector
2. Jehan Chu (Partner, Jen Advisors)
   • What Every Startup Should Know about Blockchain Technology
3. Steven Lee (Founder & CEO, MoneySQ.com)
   • The Opportunities and Challenges in Doing My FinTech Startup in HK
4. Ernest Lo (Founding President, IOTA)
   • My Entrepreneurship Journey in Doing Innovation in HK
5. Data Ng (CEO & Co-founder, Printact and 42Lab)
   • From Research to Business: Technopreneurship in HK

In the Final Pitch, 9 teams successfully completed their pitch by presenting their pitching decks and answering questions from the floor. Audience were invited to poll for their favourite team.

The results are as follows:

Gold Award: LaunchDUCK
LaunchDUCK is a P2B Import Export Trade Finance platform., an innovative marketplace for business partnering. We help solve SMEs’ funding problems by allowing our platform users tapping into SME’s trading businesses at their discretion, powered by our own risk engine

Silver Award: Transwap
TranSwap is a Peer-to-Peer Currency Exchange platform, an innovation in financial technology which allows users to seamlessly exchange foreign currencies at the mid-market exchange rate, saving you up to 80% in transaction costs as compared to intermediaries. With TranSwap, users can send money abroad or fulfil overseas payments with little hassle and maximum transparency.

Bronze Award: YinTran
Yintran Group is a Hong Kong based, financial technology development company established by veteran legal professional, business owner, engineer, and banker. This network has developed the first trustworthy money transfer network and allows anyone or any company to transfer money, via internet safely with privacy and security.

Biggest Impact Award: Strategy.me
Stratedge.me is an innovative solution from GSG Fintech designed to bring automated algorithmic trading of foreign exchange products to retail investors.

Most Popular by Audience Award: HeyCoins
HeyCoins is a chain kiosk that can solve daily problems caused by coins in society by collecting physical coins from people and exchanging out online values for various purposes, including e-wallet recharge, transportation/membership cards top-up, e-cash coupons as well as donations. Our team believes that by being entrepreneurial and responsible business founders, we can do our part to help build a better world.

ICE aspires to bring innovation gurus and successful entrepreneurs to share about their experience and insights on change-making entrepreneurship.

Incu-Lab would like to thank InvestHK for inviting us to host the pitching event as part of HK FinTech Week 2016. Also, we would like to thank our Strategic Partners (HKSTP, PwC and Playground), Sponsors (DotAsia and HKIRC), Supporting Organisations, Education Partners and Media Partners for their unfailing support and encouragement.