Pitching to investors: lessons learned by local entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley

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Published: 2:53pm, 26 Jan 2015

While a new generation of entrepreneurs is emerging in Hong Kong, both local and from abroad, young business bosses still face challenges in securing seed capital from local financial resources.

An interim report from Google and the Chinese University (CUHK)Center for Entrepreneurship shows that while nearly two-thirds of a pool of local experts interviewed consider inadequate accessibility to financial resources as the most important limitation for Hong Kong entrepreneurs, 88 per cent of 612 young entrepreneurs surveyed cited self-funding as their major source of seed capital.

The big question is what differentiates those start-ups that succeed in attracting private investment from those who do not, and what makes a difference when pitching business to private investors.

“From my experience, it was hard in the beginning,” says Raymond Yip, chief executive of Shopline. “I made a mistake when I approached the process as if begging for money. You should never do that.”

Together with two other co-founders, Tony Wong and Fiona Lau, Yip has developed a DIY e-commerce platform for creating online shops. At first, the team did not turn to investors for seed financing. Instead, the trio each put in HK$30,000 from their own pocket and started their business.

Through their personal network, they secured a meeting with Rui Ma, the venture Beijing-based partner of 500 Startups, a Silicon Valley seed fund and accelerator, which has invested in hundreds of internet start-ups in more than 50 countries globally.