The Promise and Challenges of Hong Kong's Emerging Startup Scene (Video)

Ahead of November’s Code Conference/Asia in Hong Kong, Walt Mossberg and Re/code staffers including senior writer Dawn Chmielewski checked out the scene in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Here are a few stories we collected along the way. Expect more from us across Asia leading up to our conference.

While most people know Hong Kong as one of the world’s premier financial hubs, less is known about its emerging startup scene.

The city’s ecosystem of young businesses has expanded by almost 300 percent since 2009, driven by growth in accelerators, incubators and university support, according to a study conducted by Google and the Chinese University of Hong Kong Center for Entrepreneurship.

Oddly, one problem is access to money. Despite an abundance of financial resources in the global financial center, 64 percent said the greatest limitation is inadequate capital. In fact, the majority of those surveyed — 88 percent — said they were self-funded.

Re/code recently spoke with a handful of local entrepreneurs to learn more about Hong Kong’s startup world, including Catherine Tan and Kevin Lepsoe, the founders of blog search engine Notey; Hilary Szymujko of real estate conglomerate Swire Properties; Ray Chan, the chief executive of image-sharing service 9Gag; and Kevin Chan, co-founder of Insight Robotics.

Together, they described a thriving ecosystem for early-stage companies — but one that also faces a number of challenges.

Learn more in the video below:

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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