Imagine travelling to a different country and having to buy a new sim card/phone to communicate. You will no longer have to do this to be able to use your phone thanks to Tink Labs LTD; Founded in 2012 and led by CEO Terence Kwok, a 25-year old entrepreneur. The company leases phones to travellers, so that having to buy new sim-cards when in a new country becomes unnecessary.
Tink Labs LTD. Is in the process of raising about $40 million and aiming for a valuation of more than $1 billion, per people familiar with the matter.
Tink Labs is a company that puts smartphones in hotel rooms, and as stated by the article;
The financing will go towards staff and expansion costs, and is targeting family offices and institutional investors.
The author explains the startups’ current business as;
The start-up has around 120,000 smartphones, named Handy, installed in hotel rooms operated by major groups including Starwood and Accor, and marquee locations such as The Ritz, London.
This could be Hong Kong’s first startup valued at $1 billion-plus . The reason for this;
…stems partly from a cultural norm that favors stable jobs in established companies rather than risk go-it-alone propositions. At the same time, business often targeted by startups – such as retail – are controlled by a handful of local billionaires and their conglomerates.
Personally when I do travel, I hate having to look for a sim-card to buy for my phone. This would be a nice extra-feature that hotels could offer for when you rent rooms. My only concern is the coverage and features of the phone, as well as the pricing strategy. Lastly, I'm too not sure if there already is a market for an idea such as this.
What are everyone's thoughts on this startup?
It's actually really useful, I used it all the time when I was in HK, didn't know it was made by a 3rd party company, thought it was an hotel in house thing. Almost everyone I've talked to said they only use it as a hotspot to their regular phone . I think someone can definitely undercut them by providing solely a wifi hotspot to hotels.
In my opinion If they don't expand outside of hotels, then they're quite screwed. I would license it or form a partnership with hotel chains for the in-house use. Then also sell them to maybe major communications company as an option for tourists?. Sort of like renting it with an allocated amount of minutes/texting.
There are some really talented entrepreneurs in or from that part of the world.
Any further background info on the founder?
Couldn't find much on the founder, seems he just popped out of nowhere.
his family is rich.
I never really understood the whole idea of this startup. Why would I use someone else's phone when I am in a foreign country? All my stuff is stored in my own phone. The only thing I ever need is data (if your company doesn't provide you roaming data already...). This can be better solved by either using a 2 SIM slot phones (insert a cheap local data card into 2nd slot) or rent/buy a mobile wifi router. This might cost money, but if that's the concern then maybe start a company that provides these instead. This way, I still have all my contacts, apps, everything with me.
Could even provide a sort of WiFi hot spot for service in that particular country. This would be for texting/calling and you just pay for an allocated usage/duration.
These services already exist. You just rent a mobile wifi router at international airports and you can bring it to anywhere for data. In Asia, it's called "Wifi Egg".
I have used these phones when in Hk for work but the practicality of it like you allude to is the issue. You have all of the contacts on your phone, apps that you tend to use for communication etc. This was good because it was free but I was just not organised enough to set myself with a local SIM with enough data thats why I used this phone.
There's a few companies out there which give you a SIM which offer global access to data+voice at competitive rates (rather than roaming which is a joke in terms of cost)
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