Indian Startups, Here’s Your Chance To Scale Globally With Hong Kong Startup Launchpad

As the third largest startup ecosystem of the world, India has found several international collaborations to significantly support and grow the talent across borders and at the same time, find new markets for the local startups.

One such fruitful relationship is the once forged between Hong Kong and India. Besides being the third most active foreign investor in Indian startup ecosystem, there are several partnerships and agreements that India and Hong Kong has signed in the past couple of years at the centre and state level include — the Double Tax Avoidance Agreement, WHub signing a MoU with Andhra Pradesh to launch a soft landing program to help startups in India, Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area (Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area) to scale into the others.

The latest boost for the relationship comes in-form of Startup Launchpad which will be hosted in Hong Kong in April with a special focus on Indian startups.

What Is Startup Launchpad?

Startup Launchpad (SULP) is one of the largest hardware trade shows that facilitates global distribution between startups and renowned online and offline retailers. It enables startups to scale their business worldwide, expand global business network, and find potential investors and partners.

Hosted twice a year in Hong Kong, Startup Launchpad showcases more than 300 startups to over 35,000 global buyers and over 200 investors from 140 countries and regions. The open business opportunities enable startups to validate their product globally in one-stop and get access to bigger purchase orders.

Some of the buyers who attend the event include Best Buy, Brookstone, Sony and Microsoft.

April 2019: The Conference

To be hosted on April 19, Startup Launchpad conference aims to help startups, entrepreneurs, individual professionals and students to better understand the retail landscape, technology and investment trends of the future of retail.

The conference will host discussions on how blockchain technology will be revolutionising the supply chain and logistics industry. The conference will see over 80 speakers addressing 18 keynotes and topics to over 300 member attendees.

Some of the speakers lined up include Derek Kwik, managing partner, BraveSoldier Ventures; Ji Bo, founder, China Start; Anita Varshney, strategy lead, SAP Next-gen; Jen Flowers, head of strategy, HSBC and more.

Minesh Pore, head, Startup Launchpad, told Inc42 “Hong Kong is the meeting point for the Global distributors and buyers, who come to Asia for buying the next new things, with Startup Launchpad we are providing Indian Startups a platform to meet these 30,000+ distributors and buyers from over 140 countries, that they would not meet anywhere else in the world. Startup Launchpad is an ideal platform for those Indian Startups that want to get their products sold across the globe.”

Inc42 readers can apply for the full access pass to conference here at a special discounted price of $105!

Start-Make-Sell: Workshop For Startups

Further, Startup Launchpad has partnered with CollabCentral to create a full-blown workshop, taking early stage startups or fresh entrepreneurs to go through the starting, product making and selling stages before they start and hit the unnecessary speed bumps.

The partnership brings experts from big corporates and mentors across three parts:

• Start: The experts will help a startup choose the right incubator/ accelerator, as well as leverage free trade zones and also prepare a pitch deck for series A funding
• Make: The workshop will guide startups step-by-step on the ‘how-tos’. From prototyping to production. It will also help startups do smart sourcing and manufacturing as it prepares them for cross-border commerce
• Sell: The discussions will ensue about MVP, help startups set up automated retail operations, follow user engagement and retention methods with a seamless O2O experience.

Opportunity To Raise More Than $63,697

For the Startup Launchpad Investment Competition (SLIC), Startup Launchpad has partnered with investor partners KPMG, Nam Fung, Microsoft etc. They aim to bring opportunities for mid to late-stage hardware tech startups to raise funds more than $63,697 (500K HKD), earn resources such as a working space in Hong Kong, sales channel, technology support and much more.

The Fall 2018 SLIC saw over 300 applicants out of which 10 made it to semifinals with awards of $36,562 (287 HKD).

And here’s the real deal. Any Indian tech startup, applying via Inc42, can sign up for a startup booth at the Startup Launchpad conference and avail extra benefits. At the booth, any startup can sell their products or services to the buyers.

For a 2×2 sq mtr booth, a startup has to pay $2,500, which will give them 2 passes for the conference as well as access to the networking events post-conference. A 3×3 sq mtr booth costs $5,000.

Along with this, Inc42 readers will get additional benefits worth $1,000, which includes conference pass worth $250, workshop pass worth $250 and ecosystem tour for two days in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, which includes travel (without overnight stay) and meals worth $500.

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