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The global economy has been hit hard as COVID-19 continues to rage in the world. However, some enterprises are able to stand out from the crowd due to their high adaptability to challenges and create more opportunities. Recently, VoiceAI Tech, one of the startup teams at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Shenzhen Research Institute (SZRI) Entrepreneurship and Innovation Hub (InnoHub), has received a nearly RMB100 million investment in the Series A funding round. VoiceAI Tech can take its business to the next level with the funding and become the leading company in the voiceprint recognition industry.

VoiceAI Tech develops frontier technologies including voiceprint recognition and big data analysis. The company was founded by Mr. Kevin LI Yatong who graduated from CUHK Business School, and other partners, in 2016. Mr. LI joined the CUHK Entrepreneurship Competition in 2018 and won the Champion and the Best Business Plan Award. Having learned that CUHK had established the InnoHub in SZRI to assist members of the University in Shenzhen, the Greater Bay Area and other places on the mainland to start a business, they decided to station the company in InnoHub.

InnoHub is the first startup incubation platform established by CUHK in Shenzhen. By providing a comfortable office setting with a full-range of support by a professional managing team, it strives to encourage entrepreneurs at CUHK to establish connections and exchanges with governmental, resource and investment agencies. InnoHub has grown from having seven startup teams only at the beginning to 45 companies currently. It developed a unique startup advisory service which is applicable to both Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and the blend with CUHK’s innovative background makes it people-oriented and suitable for teachers and students to start a business. InnoHub stands with entrepreneurs and helps them solve problems of different sorts. For example, during the outbreak of COVID-19, InnoHub assisted VoiceAI Tech to contact different government departments, banks, media and communities to promote their remote voiceprint health system in the hope of contributing to society by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to relieve pressure and health risks in the combat against the virus.

Dr. Huangquan LIN, Executive Director of SZRI, remarked, “InnoHub has been supported by the management at CUHK and the Management Board of SZRI since its establishment. InnoHub does its upmost to provide rent waivers for stationed startups to lower their operation costs amid the pandemic. The efforts of InnoHub in fostering regional company development are widely recognised by different levels of government. For example, in 2020 it was successfully registered as “Makerspaces” by the State’s Ministry of Science and Technology. I am confident that with the continued support of CUHK and InnoHub of SZRI, the startup teams at CUHK will have a bright future in the Greater Bay Area.”