Deep-Tech Lab

Building massively scalable,

science- and technology-based business ventures

at their seed stage

About Deep-Tech Lab

Deep-Tech Lab (DTL) is an incubation program that aims to enhance the commercialization of science in order to make an impact on business and society. DTL has collaborated with the business school to offer a special course in which students learn to facilitate the ventures. DTL will establish a non-profit organisation to support its ongoing and future initiative.

Testimonial

Kodifly Limited

"Deep Tech Lab's accelerator has catalyzed Kodifly's progress with its rigorous mentorship and invaluable networks, pushing us through tough questioning, especially from our mentor Mike Mastroyiannis, to deeply understand our unique position in the market."

DTL Updates

DTL 2024-25

Graduation Ceremony

📅 Date: June 13, 2025 (Friday)
🕒 Time: 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
📍 Venue: PwC Central Office
👥 Format: In-Person

In Stage 2 of the Deep-Tech Lab (DTL) program, mentors continue to support participating ventures in achieving three key milestones. This phase marks a critical transition for the ventures—from early-stage concepts to scalable, investor-ready businesses.

The Graduation Ceremony is a celebration of these achievements. All graduating ventures will present their progress and share the learnings gained throughout their DTL journey. This event will bring together founders, mentors, investors, and ecosystem partners for an afternoon of meaningful connections and knowledge exchange.

DTL 2024-25

Meet-up Session 3

On February 28, 2025, Deep-Tech Lab (DTL) hit an exciting milestone—hosting our first-ever DTL Meet-up at our partner, The University of Hong Kong campus, bringing together 10 high-potential deep-tech ventures and world-class mentors from across the globe.

We’re thrilled to announce that 7 DTL ventures have successfully advanced to the next stage and are on track to graduate by mid-June 2025!

A special shoutout to Mike Mastroyiannis and Emmanuel Hui for winning the Best Mentor Award—your devoted guidance is shaping the future of Hong Kong deep-tech innovation!

Moving forward, we're refining the program with the following approached:
🚀 Venture – Earlier recruitment (June) & preparation before meetings.
🚀 Mentoring – Feedback from ventures & learning circles.
🚀"CEO" for Ventures – Recruiting & training managers to lead ventures.
🚀 Learning by Building – Finding manufacturers/service providers for ventures to build a products.

Background

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Hong Kong was born entrepreneurial. After a period of dormancy in the 1990s and 2000s, this spirit has once again risen in recent years, reversing the negative trend caused by short-term thinking, a backward mentality, oligopoly, and obsolete institutions.

Now with more inventions, training, and accelerator programs, a new breed of talents, a rapidly growing hinterland, and opportunities in the region, new tech ventures have spouted inside while an equal number of them, if not more, are attracted to set up in Hong Kong. Innovation-driven economy has taken off.

Riding on this trend, deep-tech startups, that provide technology solutions based on substantial scientific or engineering challenges and valuable intellectual property, have drawn interest from investors and policy-makers. See successful deep-tech ventures originated in Hong Kong.

While Hong Kong has many startup awards and incubation programs, few of them focus on deep-tech ventures. It is high time for Hong Kong to explore new ways to spot more of them and facilitate their success.

Services

Completely free of charge for ventures
Take your business to the next level!

Team-based, Objective-oriented Mentorship

Every admitted venture has access to practical and measurable guidance from investors, business leaders, industry experts, technical mentors, and business partners. Unlike other programs, the DTL program takes an objective-based approach. Usually 3 or more mentors will work as a team to nurture the admitted ventures.

An International Networking of Exchange

Mentors of DTL are picked with a nurturing mindset instead of deal-focused. We look for those who served Creative Destruction Lab and those around this region. Networking events, both online and offline, will be held to build a bridge between entrepreneurs and both incubators and investors.

Investment and Go-To-Market Opportunities

We will seek a wide range of investors and sponsors from local and overseas to participate in the DTL program. Investment opportunities will be provided across the whole DTL program. Corporates and consulting firms will supply the platform for product- testing and go-to-market experiments.

Services

Debated, Peer-reviewed Advice

Rather than a mentor dictating a direction for the venture in a one-on-one mentoring design, the peer mentors debate their views and then prioritize the most important things to increase value and de-risk the venture quickly within the incubation period. Besides, meetings will be held for all the admitted ventures, mentors, industry experts and partners. Mentors of each venture will report the progress and upcoming plans on the stage to receive constructive suggestions openly.

Business Support - Potential CEO Matching

To better support deep-tech ventures founded by scientists who may not have a strong business background, we train a pool of potential CEOs and facilitate structured matching opportunities between these trained CEO candidates and the ventures.

Business Support by Elite Business Students

Students from a bespoke MBA course will support the venture and its mentor group. Each venture will be paired with a student to assist venture founders, who are scientists rather than businessmen, to investigate potential markets, find solution for competition, and explore funding options under the guidance of the mentors

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Services

Expert-Led Training Sessions

Renowned experts from academia, industry, and the business sector will lead the training sessions, sharing insights on commercialization, technology trends, deep-tech startup launch and scaling strategies, and industry practices. These sessions are designed to help start-up founders understand where their technology readiness and business readiness and identify how their technologies can be applied in real-world industry settings.

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Founding Team

Our team members bring their unique professional backgrounds and expertise to foster the growth and success of deep-tech ventures in Hong Kong and beyond throughout the program.

Chen FONG

Prof Chen Fong is currently the Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary. He is also the Co-Chair of the Global Strategy Board of the Creative Destruction Lab; a platform for mentoring of young entrepreneurs.

Kevin AU

Prof. Kevin Au is the Director of CUHK Centre for Entrepreneurship. He also serves as a director for the Hong Kong Business Angel Network Ltd.(HKBAN), Family Firm Institute (US), and International Study of Entrepreneurship Education Outcomes (ISSEO).

Peter LEE

Peter is a Hong Kong based investor and founder / Chairman of Gallant Investment Partners. Over more than 15 years, Peter has grown Gallant’s investments from simple beginnings to an impressive international portfolio of private equity, venture capital and real estate opportunities.

Francis PUN

Francis is AVP, Exploratory and Industry TSG of Lenovo PCCW Solutions Limited. He has over 20 years of experience in driving business growth in the areas of innovation development, strategic programs and digital projects for the technology and industrial sectors leading teams in the APAC, EMEA and US.

Alex FONG

Dr. Fong is a scholar-practitioner. As an entrepreneur, he is a Director of GRE Manufacturing Limited and GRE Alpha Electronics Limited. As an intrapreneur, he was the former CEO of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce and the former Directorate Officer of the Hong Kong government.