NEST, a newly-founded investment venture is to support entrepreneurs and enterprising new start-up businesses in Hong Kong. Its mission is to eventually take HK brands around the world.
Founded by Mr. Simon Squibb,the founder of creative design consultancy Fluid, NEST is structured to deliver both financial, backing, branding, sales and marketing support, enabling the city’s entrepreneurs to build their businesses and help them develop new, iconic Hong Kong brands.
We talked to Simon who told us that Nest has historically invested sub $1 million per deal, and then brought in 3rd party investors for between 1-5 million USD follow-on capital. The companies invested by NEST so far include successful new business concepts: Red Packet, Foodie, I-Love.com brand including iLoveSoHo and iLoveLKF, as well as Loft-Asia and Millionaire-Asia. “We are most interested in technology-enabled and brand-driven consumer businesses”, said Simon.
Talking about the Hong Kong market, in Simon’s opinion,
HK market is a key test market and anchor market for branded consumer businesses. We enter at a stage where the supportive HK environment is highly beneficial to the early development and positioning of these businesses.
Besides funding, what NEST can provide for the startups is deal specific, said Simon. It’s an investment venture, but for Simon, it’s also a platform that provides not just capital but the business consulting, marketing and brand building expertise that is needed to grow a good idea into a great scalable business.
The way to connect with NEST and apply for the fund is very old-style, just like what you find on its simple website: Write to them.
The startups in Hong Kong might be different, but the startup space definitely is getting more and more active. (You may check our previous coverage on Hong Kong startups space).