Huawei to invest $100m to boost startups

Multinational technology company, Huawei, recently announced its plan to invest $100 million in startup support recently at its inaugural Spark Founders Summit, which took place simultaneously in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Huawei said the investment would go towards its Spark programme, which aims to build a sustainable startup ecosystem in the Asia Pacific region over the next three years, said a press release.

Huawei has been helping Singapore build the first startup hub in APAC since 2020 and has expanded the programme to many countries in APAC in the past year. At the summit, Huawei also announced that this programme would focus its efforts on developing four additional startup hubs – in Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam – with the overarching aim of recruiting a total of 1,000 startups.

The Spark Founders Summit was attended by representatives from many prominent Asian startups, academia, various industries and governments, and the media, as well as more than 50 regional top venture capitalists and over 300 startup founders. Speeches and panels at the event focused on the social value of this startup ecosystem and how startups can promote technological and ecosystem innovation to contribute to local communities and drive socioeconomic development.

Huawei Senior Vice President and Board Member Catherine Chen opened the summit by emphasising how important startups are to social advancement and what Huawei is doing to support startups: “We all know how brilliant startups and SMEs are. They are the innovators, disruptors, and pioneers of our times. These companies account for two-thirds of jobs worldwide, create two-thirds of new jobs, and generate almost 50 per cent of global GDP. 34 years ago, Huawei was a startup with just 5,000 dollars of registered capital.