The government matches your R&D spending dollar for dollar, covering staff salaries, new equipment and outsourced services. No repayment, and the IP and profits stay with you.
Book a ConsultationNo repayment and no sharing of IP or profits. Apply per project, as many times as you like.
| Total project cost | HK$6M |
| Your share (50%) | HK$3M |
| ESS funding (50%) | HK$3M |
You don't need your half up front: you put it in stages, one milestone every six months.
Beyond basic eligibility, three areas matter most.
The project must solve a real problem, and the IP must not already be owned by others in Hong Kong or your target markets. New versions and new features of an existing product qualify too.
Salaries usually make up 60–70% of the funding. The team can be current staff or new hires with suitable qualifications, led by someone able to run both the team and the project.
ITC considers whether you have a stable supply chain for production, and enough distributors and customers for the product to succeed.
Science Park tenants or not, start-ups or listed companies: we have helped all of them apply successfully.
We focus on ESS and charge a consulting fee only. The funding is all yours.
One applicant lost HK$800,000 of funding over a single word in their proposal. Knowing what to write, and what not to, protects your grant.
Well-prepared documents avoid rounds of back-and-forth with ITC.
We know the process and prepare you for the vetting interview and the challenges that follow.
A weekly task list, expected dates for ITC meetings and signing, and a cash-flow plan.
ESS is part of the Innovation and Technology Fund run by Hong Kong's Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC). It encourages private companies to invest in R&D and is one of the largest sources of R&D funding open to them.
The funding never has to be repaid. Projects run for up to two years. Your company owns all the IP. You apply per project, with no limit on the number of applications. Half of your R&D staff salaries can be funded for the whole project, which suits companies with ongoing R&D.
No. Projects are split into six-month milestones, and you put in your share at each milestone.
No. ESS does not fund general operations or financing, such as upgrading production processes, automation or IT systems.
You do. You control the results, IP and profits, run the project yourself, and can use the savings for marketing, expansion or anything else.
Yes. ESS projects of 12 months or more can apply for the Research Talent Hub (RTH) to hire up to four extra research staff.
It is relatively hard. ITC vets applications carefully, and companies without experience of large funding applications often find its requirements difficult to meet.
Book a consultation. We review your project progress, team, business network and budget, tell you whether you qualify and how to prepare, and sign an NDA first to protect your information.