Asia’s Richest Man Invests Millions in Fake Egg Startup

On one level, it’s a picture of a guy making scrambled eggs. But it provides a window onto a much bigger story.

In the photo above, Li Ka-Shing — perhaps the richest man in Asia — isn’t scrambling real eggs. He’s scrambling synthetic eggs produced by a Silicon Valley startup called Hampton Creek, and that’s Hampton Creek CEO Josh Tetick standing beside him. Ka-Shing, you see, just led a $23 million investment round in Hampton Creek as the company plans a major expansion into the Asian market. Continue...

That’s a big deal in its own right, a massive boost for a company that’s trying to seriously reduce costs in the egg market. But this is also part of a larger trend where Silicon Valley startups are going to Asia for new funding as well as new markets for their products and services. The trend mirrors a similar movement over the past decade that saw Silicon Valley expand into Europe with the help of European investors.

Josh Tetrick and Hampton Creek make not only synthetic eggs but a new kind of mayonnaise that doesn’t require real eggs. So far, the two-year-old startup is doing fine here in the U.S. It boasts deals with six Fortune 500 retailers and food manufacturers. It has 50 full-time staffers working to keep those accounts going. And it closed a $5.5 million funding round barely four months ago. But it sees an even bigger opportunity in Asia, beginning with China.

China’s allure starts with its massive population and fast-growing economy, which far outpaces the growth of the U.S economy, despite recent hiccups. But Hampton Creek could also benefit from the growing concerns over the Chinese chicken population, concerns that involve everything from avian flu to antibiotic concerns to basic food safety issues.

Against this backdrop, Tetrick sees a huge opportunity to sell his fake eggs for use in packaged baked goods where their taste (bland, in our experience) is less of a drawback, and their cost (48 percent cheaper than conventional eggs) is more of an asset. “The demand is so intense and the partnership we have with Li Ka-Shing’s group is so wildly phenomenal for us, we think it’s important for us to start by the end of this year,” says Tetrick, who will triple his staff as he spins up for the Asia expansion.

Hampton Creek is hardly the first U.S. startup to go down this road. Last year, streaming service Spotify, part owned by Li, began pushing into Asia, hot on the heels of rival Pandora, whose investors include Asia-focused venture capital shop GGV Capital. Home improvement marketplace Houzz, another GGV investment, launched an Asia expansion after GGV joined its Series C funding round this past January. And messaging startup Viber was beginning to build a foothold in Asia when it was snapped up for $900 million last week by Japanese internet company Rakuten, a deal that is expected to deepen Viber’s Asian presence even more.

Such Asian expansions are only going to continue, given the many venture capital shops who are focused on matching Silicon Valley startups with the Asian market. This includes GGV, GSR, Formation 8, and the Asia divisions of Valley powerhouses like Seqoia Capital and NEA. “This has been a play for a while in Europe with funds like Index and smaller boutique funds and individuals that have helped companies like Groupon, Airbnb, Houzz, etc. expand rapidly across Europe,” says Thomas Clayton, CEO of Singapore-based Bubbly, a sort of spoken-word version of Twitter. “Now, that same phenomenon is coming to Asia.”

Asia offers successful tech companies the chance to put their growth into turbo mode. But it also gives failing startups the chance to start over fresh. Not all of them can help battle the avian flu. But they can certainly benefit from all those people — and all that money — in China.