His Royal Highness Prince Abdul Qawi of Brunei Darussalam

HugProperty.com: A Singapore Start-up Story involving a Brunei Prince, S$25,000 from DBS Bank, a Data Scientist, a Property Agent and a Banker.

His Royal Highness Prince Abdul Qawi of Brunei Darussalam announces his support to HugProperty.com, a DBS HotSpot Pre-Accelerator 2016 finalist that specialises in urgent sale properties in Singapore. The three-months-old start-up, which has received S$25,000 entrepreneur award from DBS Bank, is founded by Dr. Andy Teoh, an A*STAR scholar and former Senior Data Scientist from Singtel, Mr. Winston Lam, a former property agent from ERA and Mr. Jeffery Sung, a Senior Vice President at DBS.

SINGAPORE, Nov. 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- His Royal Highness Prince Abdul Qawi of Brunei Darussalam backs DBS HotSpot 2016 Pre-Accelerator finalist: HugProperty.com.

HugProperty (Hug) is an early stage real estate platform that specialises in urgent sale properties in Singapore.

"I find that HugProperty offers the real estate market a unique solution. I am keen to support the passionate founders as they build the team that will bring this idea to market. I look forward to participating in their subsequent fund-raising and will share my business network with them when they expand to the rest of Asia," said His Royal Highness Prince Abdul Qawi, who is the eldest son of former Brunei Foreign Minister Prince Mohamed Bolkiah.

Co-founders of DBS HotSpot Pre-Accelerator 2016 Finalist: HugProperty.com. From left: Mr. Winston Lam, a former property agent from ERA, Mr. Jeffery Sung, a Senior Vice President at DBS Bank and Dr. Andy Teoh, a former Senior Data Scientist from SingTel and A*STAR scholar.

HugProperty is co-founded by Dr. Andy Teoh, an A*STAR scholar and former Senior Data Scientist from SingTel; Mr. Winston Lam, a former property agent from ERA and Mr. Jeffery Sung, a Senior Vice President at DBS Bank.

"At Hug, we are working to leverage on new technology to transform the way real estate deals are being transacted. We are excited to bring together the synergy of data science, artificial intelligence and blockchain to serve the real estate market," said co-founder Dr. Andy Teoh, who is responsible for building the tech and data infrastructure at HugProperty.

Co-founder Mr. Winston Lam, who believes the clutter of fake and inaccurate ads in many existing property websites are a bane to the real estate market, said: "As a former property agent, I deeply understand the pain and frustration that exists in the real estate market. Helping property buyers to effortlessly stay updated on genuine urgent sale properties that match their requirement is a key focus for us now. Urgent property sellers are getting much needed exposure for their property ads at Hug."

DBS Intrapreneur and S$25,000 DBS entrepreneur award

"I am grateful to DBS for the encouragement to be so involved in a startup. Because of my experience with HugProperty, I am now better able to connect with successful tech founders for my work at DBS," said co-founder Mr. Jeffery Sung, a Senior Vice President at DBS who joined the DBS HotSpot Pre- Accelerator 2016 programme as a DBS Intrapreneur. DBS encourages employees to work with startups as part of its innovation agenda and to help build up the startup eco-system in Singapore.

"Seeding our talents with a startup mindset is a critical step of our innovation strategy. This is one of the reasons why we are the world's best digital bank," said Mr. Neal Cross, Chief Innovation Officer at DBS, who also received the World's Most Disruptive CIO award from Mr. Steve Wozniak in a Talent Unleashed ceremony in Sydney, Australia recently.

DBS HotSpot is a pre-accelerator programme for fintech, social enterprises and digital start-ups to encourage entrepreneurialism. The final batch of nine start-ups are selected from out of 250 applications made. As a finalist in DBS Hotspot Pre-Accelerator 2016, HugProperty has received a S$25,000 entrepreneur award from DBS with no requirement to offer an equity stake to the bank.

HugProperty is grateful to the following business leaders who have granted their valuable time and expert advice to the HugProperty team: His Royal Highness Prince Abdul Qawi of Brunei Darussalam; Mr. David Zhu, former COO at Baidu; Dr. Jeremy Loh, Senior Vice President of Venture & Tech Partnership in SME Banking at DBS; Mr. Joseph Phua, CEO & co-founder at Paktor; and Ms. Tan Su Shan, Managing Director and Group Head of Consumer Banking & Wealth Management at DBS.

HugProperty is three months old and currently at the early market testing stage. They are recruiting more team members in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia before raising their next funding round. More information can be found at www.hugproperty.com/for-media.

About HugProperty

HugProperty - Simple, Joyful & With Love

HugProperty is an online platform for Urgent Sale properties. Unlike websites that contain fake & outdated Ads, HugProperty only allows genuine urgent sale properties on its platform. With a unique value proposition, Hug has attracted thousands of interested buyers to property Ads (i.e. Mortgagee, Auction, Direct-Owner sales) that were previously buried in the clutter at existing websites. By truly serving the needs of its customers, HugProperty wants to be the Most Loved Property Platform in the World.

Media Contact:

HugProperty Ms Valerie Toh Communications Lead Email: [email protected] Phone: +65 8693 7018 http://www.hugproperty.com/for-media

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