AI Platform Powered by News and Data

Striving to provide trustworthy corporate news and data for businesses in Asia, scoutAsia sets up regional headquarters in Hong Kong to better serve this fast growing market.

Jointly established by Nikkei and Financial Times in 2018, scoutAsia is a digital news and data service which helps businesses to research companies and monitor trends, themes and topics with data aggregated from trusted sources, industry specific reports and news publications.

With a strong background in news and media, scoutAsia’s data is validated by machine-learning technology and a human curation team. Their extensive corporate database covers hundreds of thousands of company profiles, news articles, research reports and macroeconomic information across over 20 countries in Asia, enabling businesses to stay up-to-date and capture market opportunities. Users can also customise AI alerts on scoutAsia’s platform to track companies and trends, so that they will not miss a signal.

“We believe scoutAsia is suitable for a wide range of customers spanning financial institutions, corporations and professional service firms,” said Daniel Bogler, Managing Director, adding that some typical usage of their database includes research, portfolio management, corporate strategy, corporate finance as well as business development.

Asia, Digital and Data

In 2019, the company has set up its regional headquarters in Hong Kong. According to Bogler, scoutAsia’s aim is to expand in three of the world’s fastest growing areas, which are Asia, digital and data.

“Hong Kong is an ideal location for us since it is close to several of our biggest markets in North Asia, not too far from ASEAN and provides us with the flexibility, robust regulation and low tax regime that a startup needs,” he said.

“Our plan is to build up our client base, starting in and radiating out from three key cities which are Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. We are already winning and servicing clients in other Asian countries, such as Taiwan and Malaysia, and we will gradually expand into Europe, the Middle East and the US.”

Bogler added that despite their global expansion plan, it is still critical for scoutAsia to prioritise the Asian market with their primarily Asia-focused service.

The company currently has seven employees based in Hong Kong working with teams in Tokyo, Singapore and other cities, while the main functions of the Hong Kong office are strategy and leadership, business development, sales and marketing, customer service and finance.

“There is a large, international talent pool available in Hong Kong, whether we are looking for sales, marketing or financial professionals,” Bogler remarked, “people are willing to take risk, join a new company and work hard on a new venture.”

“InvestHK has been very helpful in connecting us with other organisations and potential clients and in helping us with our marketing and branding, by spreading the word about our company,” he concluded.