Strategic Investment from Legend Star, JD.com, Global Brain, ITIC and WI Harper to Drive Development of Hardware Innovation Platform

TAIPEI, Taiwan. – June 2, 2015 – HWTrek (Hardware Trek), the global open innovation platform for hardware creation, today announced the closing of a $4 million Series A round of strategic investment funding. WI Harper and ITIC led the investment with participation by Legend Star Capital whose parent, Legend Holding, is the controlling shareholder of Lenovo Group, JD.com (Nasdaq: JD), China’s largest online direct sales company, and Global Brain, a Tokyo-based venture capital firm. HWTrek is leveraging the funding to accelerate the development of its end-to-end platform for hardware startups, creators, and SMEs to manage their product development, connect with trusted manufacturers and supply chain vendors, and bring their products to global markets. Based in Taipei, Taiwan, HWTrek is opening an office in Shenzhen, China in June to strengthen its partnerships there.

“WI Harper, ITIC, Legend Star, JD.com, and Global Brain are critical strategic partners in this round and we greatly appreciate their participation at this early stage,” said Lucas Wang, CEO of HWTrek. “China and Japan are not only huge consumer-electronics markets, they are both significant sources of technological innovation, supply chain components, precision design and manufacturing. With their partnership, HWTrek will be able to assist an ever greater number of startups in the region and globally to manage their product development and bring product to market. In addition, we will further attract a variety of technology experts in manufacturing and the supply chain. In this way, we will accelerate the development of our platform to provide unique value to both hardware innovators and industry experts alike.”

“There is tremendous demand for supply chain resources from hardware entrepreneurs and HWTrek’s platform offers a more efficient system for bridging the resources of the supply chain and requirements of the startups,” said Keven Wang, Executive Director of Legend Star Capital. “HWTrek has a profound understanding of the supply chain as well as a global vision for the development of hardware.”

“For JD.com, the value proposition of HWTrek is its rich source of projects from the markets of North America, Europe, and Japan, which will serve as a tremendous resource for our JD Smart business unit,” said Na Xin, Vice President of JD Smart. “Further, its efficient project management platform and trusted supply chain partner resources will help speed the flow of high quality smart products to be brought to JD’s customers. JD Smart can further support hardware startups that develop products that align with our own market strategy. We highly value HWTrek’s commitment to solve many of the manufacturing problems that startups so often face.”

“We are very excited to join HWTrek’s next generation open innovation platform for hardware startups,” said Yasuhiko Yurimoto, CEO of Global Brain. “We have received positive feedback from Japanese manufacturers and startups, and we believe the combination of the best ideas and technologies from China, Taiwan, Japan and other regions will effectively expedite the successes of hardware startups globally.”

HWTrek’s Project Development Hub platform has managed more than 27,000 project tasks and has attracted 2,500 creators and startups with 850 projects, and 360 manufacturing and supply chain experts offering 210 solutions. Validation, though, comes from the experts and startups who have adopted and found value in the platform.

“HWTrek opened a new door for us to interact with hardware innovators,” said Dr. Chinglung Chen, VP and Special Assistant to the President of Qisda. “This community offered a unique venue for us to better understand the new demands emerging from the IoT trends. And for the startups and makers, HWTrek’s platform also serves as a pathway to commercialization of their products with the help of industry veterans like us.”

“Be it technical expertise, independent opinions, connections, industry insight or helping with overflow work; HWTrek has been a valuable resource for us to tap,” said Nathan Meryash, CTO of Keen Home. “HWTrek shows promise in the emerging world of making Asia R&D and manufacturing more accessible to the nascent hardware startup.”

“HWTrek gives us an opportunity to help contribute to the technology of tomorrow by working with the inventors of today via this unique community platform,” said Janet Weng, Sales Director of T-Scale Electronics Manufacturing. “We have reached out to a lot of innovative products in the IoT and wearable categories and have had opportunities to collaborate with these innovators. The ongoing support from HWTrek enables companies like mine and countless others to make the Internet of Things much more than a trend.”

“We are excited to coordinate and lead this great opportunity to drive the strategic development of global hardware innovation platform by HWTrek,” said Peter Liu, Chairman of WI Harper Group. “By addressing the challenges through deep understanding of managing product development, manufacturing and delivering innovative products to market, HWTrek has set the world to embark on its journey to be inspired by connecting hardware innovations and industry expertise.”

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About HWTrek (Hardware Trek)
HWTrek’s Project Development Hub is a cloud-based platform for hardware innovators – startups and crowdfunding creators as well as small and medium size companies – working to manage their product development, connect with manufacturing and supply chain industry experts, and bring their projects to market. The Hub generates a management flow tailored specifically to each project and facilitates collaboration between the hardware innovators and HWTrek’s ecosystem of industry partners. This ensures the best matches and connections based on their unique projects and areas of expertise to help them navigate the complexities of bringing new hardware products to market, in order to deliver a high quality product on time, under budget, and at scale. Learn more about HWTrek: www.hwtrek.com.

About WI Harper
Founded in 1996 as a global leader in cross-border investing between the United States and Greater China, WI Harper has built a fully integrated platform for cross-border investing and technology arbitrage with the world’s largest and fastest growing emerging market. WI Harper focuses on early-stage opportunities in the TMT (Technology, Media, and Telecom) and Healthcare sectors. It is committed to building a bridge of capital, technology and management experience between the United States and Greater China, thereby providing value-added services to companies at the U.S., Taiwan and China. WI Harper oversees eight funds and manages US$750M in invested capital through dedicated professionals located in San Francisco, Taipei and Beijing. To date, it has deployed capital into nearly 300 early-stage companies.  Successful track record includes DivX, Focus Media, Vizio, 21Vianet, iKang, SiRF, and Commerce One, among others.

About ITIC
Industrial Technology Investment Corporation (ITIC), set up by ITRI in 1979, is a venture capital firm specializing in the transfer and commercialization of technology in Taiwan. ITIC has been instrumental in leading Taiwan’s initial ventures into technology-based businesses, such as integrated circuits, automation, opto-electronic display, etc. ITIC has been extending its investment business to venture capital fund operations. ITIC’s investment domain has also expanded into foreign areas, primarily in the US.

About Legend Star Capital
Legend Star is a major venture capital and angel investment firm in China. By providing startup companies with angel investments, free startup mentorship (including the well-known Legend Star Entrepreneur/CEO Training Program), and other value-added services, Legend Star aims at building great companies together with startup entrepreneurs. Legend Star manages an investment fund totaling more than US$160 million, with over 100 invested companies. Its Entrepreneur/CEO Training Program has trained over 500 startup CEOs. Many Legend Star invested companies have gone on to IPO and are traded on major stock exchanges.

About JD.com
JD.com, Inc. is the largest online direct sales company in China. The company strives to offer consumers the best online shopping experience. Through its content-rich and user-friendly website jd.com and mobile applications, JD.com offers a wide selection of authentic products at competitive prices and delivers products in a speedy and reliable manner. The company believes it has the largest fulfillment infrastructure of any e-commerce company in China. As of March 31, 2015 JD.com operated 7 fulfillment centers and a total of 143 warehouses in 43 cities, and in total 3,539 delivery stations and pickup stations in 1,961 counties and districts across China, staffed by its own employees. The Company provides standard same-day delivery in more than 130 counties and districts, and standard next-day delivery in more than another 850 counties and districts across China.

About Global Brain
Global Brain Corporation is an independent venture capital based in Asia and Silicon Valley. Since its foundation in 1998, Global Brain has been focusing on seed to middle stage IT startup companies. It currently manages 5 funds with total amount of JPY 30.5B (=USD 242M). It is well known for its intensive hands-on style investments with dedicated in-house business support team, who provide growth hack assistances by leveraging their live business experiences and extensive network with large corporations. Global Brain has its headquarters in Tokyo and has branch offices in San Francisco, Korea and Singapore. For more information, please visit: http://globalbrains.com/en/

Contact:
William Andrew Albano, HWTrek
Tel: +886-2-2769-1698 | +886-2-2742-3301
Email: william.albano@hwtrek.com
Skype: william.andrew.albano