TechUp / TechConnect Funding: The Complete Guide

1. What TechUp / TechConnect actually funds

TechUp / TechConnect-style project funding sits in the same family as Hong Kong's other technology co-funding schemes: it is project-based, not a lump-sum grant. The government (or the intermediary body administering the scheme) agrees to reimburse a defined share of the approved cost of a specific technology project — not your general business expenses, and not costs incurred before the project's approved start date.

In practice this means the award letter comes with a project scope, an approved budget broken down by category, and a timeline broken into milestones. Everything you spend has to map back to one of those approved budget lines, inside the approved project period, or it simply won't be reimbursed.

2. Who is eligible

Eligibility criteria vary by the specific circular in force, but the pattern across Hong Kong's tech project-funding schemes is consistent enough to plan around:

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  A locally registered entity
  The applicant is typically a Hong Kong-incorporated company (or a locally registered organisation) with an active Business Registration Certificate — not an individual and not an offshore entity applying directly.
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  Real operating history
  Most schemes in this family expect some minimum trading history and evidence of genuine local operations (director activity, staff, an operating address) — the substance test that also applies to bank account opening and other HK grants.
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  A qualifying technology project
  The proposed project must fall inside the scheme's defined technology categories and have a clear, deliverable-based scope — not an open-ended R&D wish list.
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  No double funding
  The same cost item cannot be claimed under more than one government funding scheme at the same time — declare any other grants you hold when you apply.

3. Milestone and budget structure

Funding is released against milestones, not against a calendar. A typical structure looks like this:

The budget itself is usually split into categories such as manpower (with time-sheet evidence for staff working part-time on the project), equipment and software, outsourced/subcontracted services, consumables, and a capped overhead allowance. Each category has its own ceiling — this is why project bookkeeping has to be category-aware from day one, not reconstructed at the end from a single expense ledger.

4. The evidence regime: invoices, receipts, and the audit trail

This is where most funded projects lose money — not because the work wasn't done, but because the evidence doesn't hold up. The evidence regime funding bodies expect is consistent across HK tech schemes:

• ①
  An invoice or contract for every claimed cost — issued to the applicant company, dated inside the project period, itemised enough to map to a specific approved budget line.
• ②
  Proof of payment — bank transfer records or receipts showing the invoice was actually paid, not just issued. A claimed cost with an invoice but no matching payment is a red flag in review.
• ③
  Time records for manpower costs — timesheets or equivalent showing the hours a staff member spent on the funded project specifically, separate from their other duties.
• ④
  Procurement documentation for larger purchases — quotations from multiple vendors where the scheme requires competitive procurement above a threshold, plus the rationale for vendor selection.
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  Deliverable evidence — the actual output tied to each milestone (a document, a working build, a signed acceptance note) that proves the milestone was substantively met, not just that money was spent.

5. Reporting cadence and what triggers a clawback

Expect at minimum: a progress report at each milestone, a final report at project completion, and — for larger awards — an independent auditor's or accountant's report reconciling claimed expenditure to the approved budget. Funding bodies typically reserve the right to conduct site visits or spot-check original documents during the project and for a retention period after completion.

The most common triggers for a clawback (partial or full recovery of disbursed funds) are not fraud — they're process failures: spend that exceeds a category ceiling without prior approval, missing or unmatched payment evidence, a deliverable that doesn't match what was promised at that milestone, or a report submitted late without prior extension approval. All of these are avoidable with disciplined project bookkeeping.

6. A worked example: LinguaLeap

To make this concrete, here's an illustrative walk-through using LinguaLeap, one of the ventures in the CompanyForge founder network, as a worked pattern. (Figures below are illustrative examples only, not LinguaLeap's actual project numbers.)

LinguaLeap runs a language-learning product build as a funded project with three milestones over nine months. At kick-off, the finance lead sets up one project in Bookkeep with three budget categories — manpower, software/API costs, and outsourced localisation — each capped at its approved ceiling. Every invoice from that point is tagged to a category and a milestone the moment it's entered, not batched later. When Milestone 1 falls due, the progress report and the expenditure schedule are both generated straight from the tagged transactions, because the tagging happened continuously rather than retroactively.

7. How Bookkeep's Projects tab runs a TechUp project end to end

This is exactly the workflow Bookkeep's Projects tab is built for — turning the evidence regime above from a manual scramble into a running ledger:

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  One project, one budget envelope
  Create a project matching your approved award, with the exact budget categories and ceilings from your funding agreement — Bookkeep flags any entry that would push a category over its cap before you file it.
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  Invoice + receipt capture per line item
  Attach the invoice, the proof of payment, and (for manpower) the timesheet directly to each transaction, tagged to its budget category and milestone as it's entered — not reconstructed later.
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  Milestones as a live checklist
  Each milestone tracks its required deliverable, its report due date, and its running spend against budget, so you can see months ahead whether you're on pace to hit a milestone or under-spending a category.
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  One-click reporting export
  When a report is due, export the expenditure schedule for that milestone — category totals, invoice references, payment evidence — as a single reconciled package ready to hand to your accountant or auditor.

8. FAQ