AcceleratorHK, Hong Kong’s Accelerator for Mobile Startups On Hybrid Development

Hong Kong was reported 13.8millions mobile subscriptions by 2010, which means around 2 subscriptions for each local citizen. There are 5millions smart phones in Hong Kong, which also implies ~70% of local populations has a smart mobile device to access the internet. So clearly, mobile market is what every HK based startup should consider seriously.

AcceleratorHK, funded and supported by Telerik (the maker of KendoUI and Icenium, tools that make cross platform mobile development easier) is a new accelerator for mobile startups on hybrid development, and it is organized by Stephen Forte and Paul Orlando, two successful entrepreneurs and educators with passion for startups and disruptive technology. AcceleratorHK invests US$15,000 in each company for 5%-8% equity, and also provides co-work space and mentorship program to the startups invested.

The interesting point about AcceleratorHK is that it focus on mobile with the emphasis that the startups’ apps must be using hybrid development method (hybrid development means a native, downloadable app that runs all or some of its user interface in an embedded browser component, i.e. HTML5). As for the reason, Stephen Forte mentioned on his blog, Gartner predicts that by 2015, 80% of all mobile applications developed will be hybrid or mobile-Web-oriented. AcceleratorHK is to follow the trend in mobile apps development.

AcceleratorHK’s first semester (Nov 5, 2012 – Feb 8, 2013) has opened for applications. As Paul told us, 5 startups are expected to participate the program for the first time.