The core members of the ShareRing team gathered in the center of Hong Kong to host their first ShareRing party on May 3rd, 2018. I was fortunate enough to be invited to the event packed with fun, drinks and important people. The full house consisted of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and large scale contributors from the many people I was able to network with. Tim Bos (CEO), Rohan LePage (COO), Peter David (non-executive Director), Helen Palmer (Global Community Director) and advisor Ting Chan all took the time to chat with me, and all I could say about them is that they are not only great minds coming together to build a market place for the sharing economy, but are also brilliant and down to earth people.

The 3 highlights of the evening for me were the speeches from the honorable guests, important announcement by CEO Tim Bos, and the live business pitches by the winners of the first ShareRing pitchfest challenge.

Speech from Special guests

First up was Florian Garnier, VP of Innovation at Storefront. Storefront is a young business which provides rental spaces for short-term pop-up stores in major cities. They currently provide services in London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and Milan, all major cities where the properties are very expensive and not a fit-for-purpose for start-ups, artists, and individuals to rent for the long-term. Florian gave us insight on the necessity of the sharing economy and how it will grow exponentially moving forward.

The next guest speaker was Leo Chiu from Spike Ventures. Leo is an experienced Venture Capitalist with plenty of experience in the blockchain space. He passionately shed light on the significance of the trust built in the distributed ledger and how it will continue to grow in the years to come. The major factor for him to decide whether to support a blockchain project is “whether the business model requires blockchain”. He mentioned his conversations with CEO Tim Bos and how his experienced team convinced him this project is a winner.

Announcement from Tim Bos

Tim Bos took the mic to thank the guests and GTI Holdings, a major investment fund who recently became ShareRing’s partner. ShareRing has definitely been announcing great news for the supporters before their token main sale with partnerships with major players such as BYD, DJI, and YooGo as well as joining the new mobility consortium MOBI that consists of 70% of the top automakers of the world.

Tim gave us a little history behind ShareRing and how he sold his car and house to start Keaz, aiming to create a one-size-fits-all market place for the sharing economy. He explained how Keaz shifted to focus on car sharing as it was difficult to create this solution with the existing technology. Then came the blockchain and Tim and the team created ShareRing, a one-size-fits-all market place with a distributed ledger..

During the Q&A session, I was chosen to throw a question at Tim: “Apart from the car sharing industry where ShareRing already has leverage, what are the top 3?” Tim’s golden answer was, 1. Agriculture, 2. Food and Beverages, 3. Transport and Logistics. They are already in talks with potential partnerships and clients in each of those sectors, and Tim will be attending a conference next week specific for the transport and logistics industry.

Pitchfest Challenge Winners

ShareRing hosted a business idea pitch contest in April and the 2 winners won a paid trip to Hong Kong to give a live pitch at this party. The winners will also receive support from the team to start the business on the ShareRing platform.

Mathias from Germany presented his pitch of ShareRing.Works. The idea is to create a co-working space where people can learn, work and share any equipment and/or services. The idea is brilliant as it captures the new era of the sharing equipment as it focuses not only on the tangible assets, but also on sharing intellect and services.

Ilya and Max from Prague presented their business idea of CookLikeChefwhich focuses on the food processing industry and increasing efficiency and reducing waste through sharing space, machinery, and ingredients. It aims to lower the capital entry barriers and enhance the sharing economy in the industry. The idea is set to start in Europe and then expand to other regions as scaling will not be difficult as credentials are created.

I was personally very impressed by the winners of the pitch contest for being very young but confident, passionate but modest, and also because they were great people to share a beer with. One of the winners Ilya actually previously lived in Hong Kong and was thrilled to be back in town. Similar contests will be held in the future, so future entrepreneurs should keep an eye out!

The Hong Kong Party, in my opinion, was a great success, and more parties will be hosted with the next one planned in New York. The ShareRing team is experienced and definitely has the vision and detailed steps required for ShareRing to become the one-size-fits-all market place for the sharing economy. I will follow this project for a very, very long time.

For more information, visit https://sharering.network . The main token sale is coming soon in June.

This was written by Mats as a guest piece for ShareRing. Mats is a resident of Hong Kong working in the Financial Services Industry. His background is in consulting with expertise in cross-border and global project management. He joined the ShareRing Community and became a fan of Tim Bos and his vision to develop a platform for the sharing economy.