Huawei Spark accelerator programme the ‘soil’ that nurtures Deep Tech start-ups
Technology is accelerating at an even faster pace now that demand by businesses to digitalise amid the Covid-19 pandemic has skyrocketed. Now, Chinese tech giant Huawei wants to reach out to start-ups who have interesting Deep Tech capabilities and ideas. Huawei plans to help them grow and stay ahead of ever-evolving digital trends, via its recently-launched Huawei Spark programme.
Huawei Spark is a two-tier hybrid global start-up accelerator programme that aims to incubate and accelerate start-up growth and build an ecosystem for them in the Asia Pacific region.
Deep Tech refers to technologies not focused on end-user services. Huawei’s programme will see millions of dollars going to support and grow Deep Tech start-ups from seed stage to late stage, with a focus on the use of 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning and analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile edge computing as well as mobile and software as a service (SaaS) applications.
To kickstart Huawei Spark 2020, the company has partnered Enterprise Singapore and Startup SG to organise a global start-up competition. Finalists in the competition will be able to pitch for a spot in Slingshot 2020, Startup SG’s internationa pitching competition. The top 15 start-ups will also secure a spot in the Huawei Spark programme, with the top five entering the “accelerate” tier and the remaining 10 entering the “incubate” tier.
Subject to the start-up’s maturity, the successful entrants in the Huawei Spark programme will receive an AI development fund of up to US$100,000 ($136,000) as well as cloud credits of up to US$125,000. Apart from the financial support, Huawei will also provide valuable training as well as technical and go-to-market support.
In an interview with The Edge Singapore, chief digital officer of Huawei Cloud and AI for APAC Leo Jiang says three main characteristics make Huawei stand out from other incubator and accelerator programmes.
“First, we have a huge presence in the enterprise and consumer space globally. Second, we will grow this platform by working with a lot of partners, such as governments and venture capital firms. Last but not least, is our technology. We are the only company that provides full tech stack support to start-ups, inclusive of hardware, firmware, software and cloud,” Jiang explains. That is not surprising, given that nearly half of Huawei’s workforce is involved in R&D.
The Huawei Spark accelerator programme runs for around six months. Through the programme, Huawei will also pick a number of eligible start-ups and further help them boost their business and brand awareness through Spark Fire.
Unique to the Spark programme, Spark Fire allows selected start-ups to gain access to Huawei’s ecosystem of resources through a three-tiered “sell to, sell with, and sell through” model.
“One key challenge that start-ups face is growth, especially when growing from series A to a later stage. And that is all about how well you execute on the ‘land & expand’ strategy, such as landing a deal first and expanding from that and achieving more deals with one client, and more clients. Spark Fire enables them to access our large network of clients and sell with and well through Huawei,” says Jiang.
The “sell to” initiative provides start-ups opportunities to sell its solutions to Huawei which will then match those solutions with its clients and, in turn, sell it to them.
The “sell with” initiative allows companies to team up with Huawei and sell their products through the latter’s global salesforce. This gives the start-ups access to some 197 Fortune 500 companies.
With “sell through”, start-ups can sell their products through the Huawei App Store and Cloud marketplace, giving them access to over 600 million Huawei mobile users and Huawei Cloud users globally.
In both the Huawei Spark accelerator programme and Spark Fire, Huawei aims to only help the start-up community. This means it will not buy or own any equity in any of the startups, or dabble in any of the start-up’s applications or data.
“This gives the start-ups a sense of comfort working and they don’t have to worry with Huawei. To use a simple analogy, we are the soil and when the start-ups plant their seeds into our soil, we will provide all the nutrition and help them to grow in the ecosystem,” says Jiang.