Organizers of largest tech conference in Europe hold first event in Asia

JULY 31 (Reuters) – Over 500 start-up companies congregated in Hong Kong on Friday (July 31) to attend RISE, the first conference in Asia organised by Web Summit, one of the largest tech summits in Europe.

Organisers estimated the event attracted over 5,000 people from 72 countries, including 300 investors.

One of the companies attending the summit is the world’s biggest drone maker, China-based DJI.

DJI, whose best-selling Phantom 2 Vision+ drone retails for around $1,200 in the United States, estimates that it already has about 70 percent of the commercial market worldwide and a larger portion of the consumer market.

The company headquartered in Shenzhen announced in May that it secured a $75 million investment from Accel Partners, a venture capital firm that was an early backer of internet pioneers such as Facebook, Etsy and Dropbox.

On Friday, DJI showed off two of its drones’ latest capabilities.

In the first demonstration, a staff member controlled the camera movements on the high-end “Inspire 1” drone using a pair of virtual reality goggles. The drone’s camera moved as he turned his head.

DJI also demonstrated its new drone “Matrice 100” which is equipped with a “guidance system” of ultrasonic sensors and cameras help it avoid obstacles.

The Chinese company’s head of communications, Michael Perry, said its success would change people’s perception of innovation in Asia.

“We’re the first Chinese company to create a completely new market that never existed before. We’re one of the few Chinese companies to go abroad first by focusing on U.S. and Europe markets before starting to focus on Asia. And I think that sort of development story, that success story, starts changing the way that people think about innovation in Asia. There is huge innovative potential, you have a huge talent base of engineers, and you also have manufacturing capabilities right here. And that allows people to iterate a lot faster, and come up with really unique and novel solutions,” Perry said.

The sentiment is echoed by RISE’s organiser and founder of Web Summit, Paddy Cosgrave.

Cosgrave said he decided to launch the event in Asia because the number of Asian start-ups who attend the Web Summit in Dublin had grown exponentially over the years.

He added more and more tech companies with valuations of $1 billion or more, or “unicorns”, are coming from Asia.

“So five years ago, there was only talk of one place in the world, and that was Silicon Valley, and that was producing Facebook and Twitter. But five years later, look at what’s changed. You’ve got companies like Xiaomi, DJI, they didn’t exist four years ago, and now they’re taking on the world. They were nine unicorns in Asia created in the last quarter alone. The world has shifted, it’s no longer about Silicon Valley, and Asia’s playing a massive part in the future,” Cosgrave said.

Compass, a company that compiles an annual Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking, released its latest report on Monday (July 27), listing Silicon Valley, New York City and Los Angeles as the top three start-up hubs in the world.

Singapore is its top-ranked Asian city, at number 10, but many major Asian cities – including those in China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea were omitted from the research due to language barriers, according to Compass.

RISE says its attendants’ top five countries of origin are China, Singapore, India, United States and the Philippines.

The tech conference continues until Sunday (June 2).