Finance startup named after the Laughing Buddha chosen as Beijing Tech Hive Weekend Startup Accelerator Winner
Beijing Tech Hive is a Chinese home-grown weekend accelerator similar to Startup Weekend. The 10th batch of Beijing Tech Hive was held from 18th October 2013 to 20th October 2013 at the Microsoft Research Asia Pacific office in Beijing’s technology district Zhongguancun. Beijing Tech Hive is organized by Red Pagoda Resources, a talent acquisition firm.
6 startups pitched at the Beijing Tech Hive demo event in Beijing today, attended by VCs, angels, startup enthusiasts, potential co-founders and employees.
The judges at the 10th edition were William Bao Bean, Managing Director at SingTel Innov8; Ma Rui, Partner, 500 Startups; Terry Zhu, Executive Director, Blue Run Ventures and Figo Zhang, Executive Director, Northern Light. The criteria the judges used to choose the winner were size of the market, quality of the team and business model.
A goal based savings and investment app called Milefo (Chinese word for Maitreya Bodhisattva who is worshiped for wealth and good luck) was adjudged the winner while a mobile social network for pet owners and pet-lovers won the second place. Interestingly both the startups are business ideas of expats living in China and part of the reason they took part in the weekend accelerator was to find potential cofounders, employees and investors.
Milefo aims to build an investment community in China that helps people to save and invest for their financial goals in the near and distant future. It's key benefits according to the team are that it is cheaper than a mutual fund and a Private Wealth Management advisor and it is hassle free.
Social and Mobile were the buzzwords as most of the startups wanted to target the huge opportunities at the convergence of social and mobile in China.
The startups that were presented today (in no particular order):
Team 1 led by Josephine Wang: A platform that connects job seekers with international companies by evaluating their English ability and matching them with the requirements of the companies.
Team 2 led by John Yue: A restaurant service platform.
Team 3 led by He Lin: The startup aims to be China’s largest designer clothes ecommerce website.
Team 4 Milefo led by Greg Bergh: A Finance 2.0 goal based savings app which hopes to disrupt the current finance and investments scenario in China.
Team 5 led by Bill Zhang: A service to simplify and organize the huge renovation business in China.
Team 6 Meowment led by Witold Kozlowski: A social network for pet owners and pet-lovers in China.
Beijing Tech Hive website: http://www.bjtechhive.com/
Update: The post has been updated with more detailed information on the startups.