QIMA

QIMA turned factory inspection into something you book like a hotel room. Founded in Hong Kong in 2005 as AsiaInspection, it lets a buyer anywhere order an inspector to a factory in Shenzhen or Dongguan online and pay upfront. Someone is on site within 48 hours and the report comes back the same day. They have more than 6,000 employees across 90+ offices and labs and work for about 30,000 businesses.

The idea came from founder and CEO Sébastien Breteau, a Frenchman and HEC Paris graduate whose earlier ventures included importing Tamagotchis into France and running a promotional-products business. Working in Asia–Europe trade, he saw how hard it was for small Western firms to get a quick, responsive third-party inspection. AsiaInspection put a web platform at the centre of the business, won Alibaba's "E-Business of the Year" award in 2008, and branched into food testing, Africa and Latin America. In December 2018 it became QIMA. Since then it has bought its way into new labs and skills, from Mexican standards body NYCE to Hungarian cybersecurity lab CCLab, efrac in India and APEX Science. Investors have included CDPQ and TA Associates.

For hardware makers in Guangdong, QIMA is a very practical tool. Inspectors do initial-production, in-line and pre-shipment checks and container loading. Auditors cover quality systems and social compliance. Their Dongguan lab, QIMA Hansecontrol Testing Service in Liaobu, is accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 (the standard for testing labs). Across Hong Kong and China the labs run more than 6,000 product tests on electronics, appliances, lighting, toys, textiles and e-bikes, with CNAS, CMA and CPSC recognition.

Everything goes through the myQIMA platform and app, where you book, track and approve jobs and compare suppliers over time. Breteau's pitch is "real-time supply intelligence" that makes quality and compliance easier to control.

QIMA suits importers, brands and hardware startups who want standard, quickly booked inspections, audits and compliance tests without haggling with a local agent, and teams juggling lots of suppliers who want all the data in one place. If you want an engineer embedded at one supplier, or deep product-development help, you'll probably want a hands-on consultancy alongside it.