Government’s support for I&T sector strengthens Hong Kong’s position as an international incubation hub
A total of 80 companies celebrated a major milestone in their I&T journey at today’s Incubation Graduation Ceremony. This was the highest number of Incubation graduates in a single year. They come from China, Canada, Hong Kong, Russia and the United States, underpinning Hong Kong's growing status as an international hub for innovation and technology.
Peter Mok, Head of Incubation & Acceleration Programmes, HKSTP, shared the new initiatives aimed at accelerating the development of incubatees as well as Hong Kong’s overall I&T development. These included a revamped Mentorship Programme, and new online value-added services, such as Marketplace@HKSTP, the Legal Library and the Investor Calendar.
Hong Kong, 21 March 2019 – Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) today held the 2019 Incubation Graduation Ceremony at Science Park, as part of the “MakeITHongKong 3-2-1 Go! Bang!” event. The ceremony honoured 80 companies for completing their Incubation Programmes, setting a record for the highest number of companies to graduate in a single year.
The graduates all came from the three Incubation Programmes offered by HKSTP - Incu-App, Incu- Tech, and Incu-Bio – and were in various stages of development when they signed up. These companies were either at the conceptualisation stage, those seeking initial seed money, or those about to commercialise their solutions.
A reflection of the city’s growing position as an international I&T hub, the graduating companies came from China, Canada, Russia, the United States and Hong Kong. Collectively, they have won 99 innovation awards from local and international competitions, have filed or registered 38 patents, and raised a total of HK$ 134 million from angel investments and venture capital funding.
Albert Wong, CEO of HKSTP, said, "We have been making the best use of the government’s funding support to introduce new initiatives, enhanced current programmes and support services to strengthen our ecosystem and accelerate the growth of our start-ups. Last year, we set a target of incubating more than 500 I&T companies over the next few years, and we are well on our way to achieve this. To see so many companies graduating from our programmes this year is gratifying for us all here at HKSTP, as well as our public and private sector partners.
It is also good to see that many of these graduates are becoming our partner companies and continue to build their business at the Park. Not only are they are taking advantage of what Science Park can offer them in terms of R&D and commercialisation support, they also continue to contribute to the I&T ecosystem by sharing knowledge to other incubatees. The Greater Bay Area is also on track to become a global innovation hub and these companies are setting themselves well for future opportunities. May they inspire more entrepreneurs and start-ups to come forward and bring their ideas to life.”
With this year’s graduation batch, more than 622 start-ups and companies have since graduated from HKSTP’s Incubation Programmes.
More Initiatives to be Introduced to Accelerate Development of Incubatees
At the event, HKSTP also announced new initiatives and support services to further boost the current set of Incubation Programmes.
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