Fung Group teams up with start-ups, incubators and venture capitalists for ‘incubator of incubators’

The Hong Kong trading, supply-chain management and retail major Fung Group on Friday announced partnerships with start-ups, incubators and venture capitalists in Shanghai, moving a step closer in its pursuit of an ecosystem for smart supply-chain management.

The partnerships will also revamp the company’s Explorium project in Shanghai, billed as “the world’s first retail business model-testing platform”. Initiated in 2015, the revamped Explorium 2.0 provides a dedicated space for the incubation of technology start-ups focused on global supply-chain management and fashion within a 250,000-square feet complex at the company’s mainland headquarters.

The Fung Group will work with technology start-ups such as TechNode and Tezign and incubators such as ARM Accelerator, Microsoft Accelerator and Plug and Play Tech Centre to build up an ecosystem that will fully unlock opportunities through the digitisation of the global supply chain.

The company has also joined hands with a raft of venture capitals, including ZhenFund, SB China Capital, Gobi Partners, Yunqi Partners and Cherubic Ventures, for its global smart supply-chain ecosystem.

“What we want to do is to gather all the people that are doing innovation in the global supply chain into one place and we have the convening opportunity to put everybody together to create and discuss new ideas,” group chairman Victor Fung Kwok-king told the South China Morning Post in Shanghai.

And there is ample reasons to not only work with start-ups but incubators and other partners as well, he said, stressing that the Fung Group wants to act as a convenor working with different parties with shared interest.