First Unicorn in Hong Kong: Klook

Tags

Technology, Unicorn, Venture Capital

Article by: Dr. Kyle Wong – Project Director of ACH Worldwide Ltd.

Five years ago, Eric Gnock Fah, the COO and co-founder of Klook, was staffing a small booth at Rise. Today, Klook is the first Hong Kong unicorn. It just received 150 million USD from Softbank’s Vision Fund. It received funding from some of the biggest VC funds including Sequoia China. The story of Klook offers many valuable lessons to anyone doing start up, especially in Hong Kong.

Klook means Keep looking. Their users can buy train tickets and even book restaurants. Most their most important products are day tour. The founding team was inspired by unique and special tour experience such as Parahawing in Nepal. it is a combination of fun, cultural as well as environmental experiences. However, Eric soon realised these unique experience, while sexy, are not very scalable and therefore hard to sustain a real business. So they turn to some boring but basic products such as transportation, theme parks and famous tour attraction. Currently user can buy all the train tickets in China, Japan, Taiwan on their web site.

However, Klook continues to work with bloggers and travel reporters to find unique and special travel ideas. To Klook Japan, especially with the coming of the 2020 Olympics, is a key market. They not only work with all the train companies in Japan, but now are offering onsen experience to the Klook’s customers.

Klook realised that many local tour operators are still quite manual and therefore not scalable. So Klook works with the operators to help them to go digitise their booking systems. Klook operates mostly day trip. They want to work with as many local operators as possible.

The fund raising experience offers valuable lessons to young Hong Kong entrepreneurs. When Klook first talked to Chinese investors, the investors have difficulty understanding the business model as they focus mainly inbound and the domestic market. But with more and more Chinese going outbound, they now realise the huge market potential. Hong Kong plays an important role in the global travel. Not only Hong Kong is a travel hub, people in Hong Kong love to travel and therefore can offer many exciting travel ideas. With Hong Kong right between the East and West, it will play a role to connect China to the rest of the world.

 

 

Combining AI and Robotics to Improve Supply Chain

Tags

Artificial Intelligent, Robot, Technology

Article by: Dr. Kyle Wong – Project Director of ACH Worldwide Ltd.

Logistics is a huge business. It is even bigger as e-commerce grows all over the world. However, it is also very labour intensive. According to the CEO of Geek+, Mr. Yong Zheng, logistic industry hires 140 million globally. It means that the labour cost is huge. The labour problem is compounded by the fact young people hesistate to enter the business because of the perceived tough working environment. Second challenge is that tradional automation method requires heavy capex which takes 7-10 yr. payback period. Lastly, there can be huge seasonal order flutuation. For example, during the 11.11 Festival in China, order can spike up 30%. So the robots must be highly adaptable.

Geek+ is formed to meet these challenges. It is the largest and most commercially proven independent logistic robotics player in the world. It is at the right place and at the right time. The global logistic and industrial robot market is expected to grow from 6 billion USD in 2018 to 35 billion USD in 2022, with a CAGR of 55%. In the same period the logistic and industrial automation total solution is expected to grow 3 times while intelligent supply chain is expected to grow 10 times.

Geek+ produces a wide range of logistic robots with indoor self-driving capabilities. They are already deployed in many different industries including the China Post Office, retail stores, garment manufracturer. The key is to their success is to combine AI and robotics to provide tail-made solutions to different companies. So Geel+ is not only selling robots, but total supply chain solutions combining AI, robots and big data. The solutions are not only cost-efficient but highly adaptable

As their customers utilizes more and more robots, Geek+ is building bigher and bigger robot network all over the world. They have currently deployed 7,000 robots globally and is currently engaged in more than 200 projects in multiple industries. As supply chains become automated, Geek+ has a bright future.

 

The State of the Crypto Market

With the rebound in the price of cryptos (the price of bitcoin has risen from around $4,000 USD in March 2019 to above $11,000 in June) and the recent announcement of Facebook to launch its own crypto-currency Libra, there is a renewed interest in the development of cryptos and blockchains.  Association of Blockchain Development (ABCD), together with Broctagon, successfully runs a seminar titled “The State of the Crypto Market” on 5 July 2019 at the Causeway Bay campus of the Manchester Business School.   More than 80 people showed up to listen the talks given by a group of industry experts.

In the opening remark and in the panel discussion, Dr. Kyle Wong, the President of ABCD, talks about the continuing adoption of blockchain technology by major corporations.  They include the trade finance systems by HSBC and HKMA built on blockchains, HSBC using blockchain for FX settlements and subsequently saving 25% in cost, JPM introducing the JPM stablecoin, LVMH creating a chain for provenance of their luxury goods and SocGen is doing a covered bond offering on blockchain.  Kyle believes that to improve blockchain adoption, universities, corporations and regulators need to work closer together to promote the technology.

Ms. Julianne Doe, who is a partner at Dentons Hong Kong LLP as well as the legal advisor to ABCD, first shared about the recent push by the Hong Kong regulatory authorities into Fintech. They include Fast Payment System and the granting of eight virtual bank licenses.  However, the regulators are taking a much more cautious approach regarding cryptos.  Even though there is a big interest globally in Initial Coin Offering (ICO) or Security Token Offering (STO), the rules in Hong Kong is still not clear.  In particular Julianne observed that the intended pathway by the regulators is to fit the trading of crypto products into the existing securities regulation regime, rather than a new and separate regulatory regime.

Another keynote speaker, Mr. Fay Lam, is the CEO of SmartUp, an incubator of blockchain start-ups.  Mr. Lam is also a founding member of ABCD.  Fay shares about how blockchain technology enables decentralized finance which can potentially disrupt the current financial system.  The potential benefits of decentralized finance include helping the unbanked, making cross border payment much cheaper, better privacy & security and making censorship resistant transactions.  However, to fully realize the potential of decentralized finance, there are still a few challenges to solve.  Currently blockchain still suffer from slow transaction speed and the overall adoption rate of cryptos by the public is still quite low.

Article by: Dr. Kyle Wong

President of Association of Blockchain Development & Project Director of ACH Worldwide Limited