The Global Venture

I read a very comprehensive article from Agnus Lau's blog 852signal about Web 2.0 s in Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, there are several options to finance a Web 2.0 start-up and most of them happen to be the Government of the HKSAR (Hong kong Special Administrative Region). At this moment Venture Capitalists are not very present in the web 2.0 panorama of Hong Kong. However here there is a very complete list of Venture Capital firms in Hong Kong.

These are three of the possibilities offered by the Government:

• Small Entrepreneur Research Assistance Programme (SERAP): it offers a grant of up to HK$2 million (around 200.000 €) on a dollar-for-dollar matching basis, in the form of cold cash or manpower
• Incubation Programme @ HKSTP:  offers some sort of funding and office space for the startups
• Cyberport IncuTrain Centre: offers some sort of funding and office space for the startups

Appart from these Government schemes, there is:

• Youth Business Hong Kong program that provides HK$100,000 (around 10.000 €) interest free loan for small startups.

Requirements: 

• Being permanent Hong Kong citizens.
• Have a registered business

As I already expected, financing a start-up in Asia is not easy, above all if you are not a permamente Hong kong citizen (which is my case). Furthermore the capital offered, about all by the Youth Business Hong Kong program, is not very high.