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Huawei to invest $100 m in Asia Pacific startup ecosystem


Published : 04 Aug 2021 09:54 PM

Huawei announced its plan to invest US$100 million in startup support recently at its inaugural Spark Founders Summit, which took place simultaneously in Singapore and Hong Kong, said a press release on Wednesday. 

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

Huawei has been helping Singapore build the first startup hub in APAC since 2020 and has expanded the program to many countries in APAC in the past year. 

Huawei also announced that this program 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, out of which 100 are scaleups, into the Spark accelerator program.

Three additional startup-related initiatives were launched by Huawei at the event: The Spark Developer Program, which aims to nurture a developer ecosystem powered by HUAWEI CLOUD in the Asia Pacific region; the Spark Pitstop Program, designed to onboard and support startups on HUAWEI CLOUD to accelerate product development; and the Spark Innovation Program (SIP), focused on facilitating enterprise innovation through the Spark startup ecosystem.

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. 

Huawei Senior Vice President and Board Member Catherine Chen opened the summit.

While addressing, he emphasized how important startups are to social advancement and what Huawei is doing to support startups.

Zhang Ping’an, CEO of Huawei’s Cloud Business Unit, noted, “Since its launch in 2017, HUAWEI CLOUD has been the world’s fastest-growing cloud, and has driven the growth of countless startups. Last year, we launched the Spark Program in Asia Pacific.”

“‘In Asia Pacific, for Asia Pacific’ has been our unchanged commitment for the past two decades,” said Jeffery Liu, President of Huawei Asia Pacific, “Leveraging Huawei’s global customer base and full-stack technologies, the Spark Program will invest over $100 million in the next three years, and provide comprehensive support to build a sustainable startup ecosystem and create new value for the dynamic region.”