HR COMMUNITY
HRTechTank
Hong Kong HR Technology Demo Day HR Tech Financing History: Deals And Dollars 2011 – 2015
383
296
236
$2,461 132 $1,518
77
$305
$362
2011
2012
$659
2013
2014
Amount invested in HR Tech (USD)
Tech start-ups are flourishing globally, and their presence is also being felt in Hong Kong. With the HR software market now worth USD 15 billion worldwide, with more potential to grow, the returns on investment in the expanding digital HR market are looking promising and are gaining more traction with investors. Kicking off its first event of 2016 in Hong Kong, HRTechTank brought together a number of vendors and innovators in the HR Management and Recruitment software sphere to share their products and thoughts about the HR tech market, especially for start-ups. Taras Polischuk, Managing Partner, HRTechTank opened the session by talking about the growth in investment into HR tech start-ups. Since 2009, USD 5 billion has been invested into this space—a rapid rise in investment from USD 305 million in 2011 to USD 2.5 billion in 2015. Further to that, the amount of HR tech investment deals that have been made increased from 77 to 383 in the same period. Even on the scale of Software as a Service (SaaS), HR technology between 2011 – 2014 has attracted a significant number of deals, with the HR and Workforce Management software industry making it into the top five of all sub industries globally that attracted investment. This is set to grow as HR takes on a much more strategic role.
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In addition to the overall growth of the market, consolidation is also accelerating with some of the bigger legacy vendors actively looking to acquire smaller firms and point solutions. LinkedIn has acquired Lynda, SuccessFactors was acquired by SAP, Taleo merged with Oracle.
Number of deals
When it comes to launching an HR tech business in Asia, there was a lot of key advice for starters. Importantly, noted Peter Earnshaw, Management Consultant—Cloud Technologies, Redshift Partners, there are seven key tips to launching an HR tech business in Asia:
TOP SEVEN
tips for launching a HR tech business in Asia
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—Taras Polischuk, Managing Partner, HRTechTank
2015
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With all this in mind, there is a lot on the horizon in terms of innovation in the HR technology space—and with investment looking to increase over the next few years, it will be a great opportunity for HR to look at how it can leverage such software to solve key strategic problems.
7
Pick a market—either one to six, but expand into markets slowly and not all at once. Understand the price points and capital account convertibility of your market.
‘Buy a brand’—try and get some big names to use your software. Invest USD 1 million per market—this is the price of the game.
‘Social selling’ is a must as reputation in the region counts. Do not educate—sell to the status quo, even if it reduces the functionality of the product. Beware of the impact of foreign users on your road map and service delivery.