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September 18, 2013

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Start-ups seek VC funding at Ningbo Talent Week

By Zha Minjie | September 18, 2013, Wednesday | Print Edition

Xin Hongwu seemed lost at the Ningbo exhibition center which is crowded with job hunters and venture capitalists on the lookout for golden eggs.

Armed with PhD degree in biology and having worked as a researcher in the US for a long time, Xin said he has little experience setting up a company. He and his friends plan to produce new anti-cancer drugs based on his research in cancer stem cells. He claimed the drugs are expected to be more effective than most of the current ones.

“I know every start-up is the most difficult,” said Xin as he talked with various VC firms or financing fund managers. “It will be the best if I can get the advice and money as well.”

Like Xin, many returning overseas professionals were in the city looking for opportunities to turn their research or findings into fruits at the eighth Ningbo Talent Week.

The start-ups have become more common in Ningbo, a coastal city in Zhejiang Province which once largely relied on fishing and manufacturing. But the city is now gradually shifting to high-tech projects to drive industrial reforms.

The talent week, which ended yesterday, aimed to attract thousands of professionals with ideas for new business, scientific research and creative designs.

By the end of last year, 3,499 returning overseas professionals had settled in Ningbo. Last year alone, 947 professionals started up their business in Ningbo, a jump of 88.7 percent from a year earlier, said Ningbo’s city government.

The government said in a report that there is still a shortage of professionals in industries such as finance, medicine and health care, as well as design.

“Money is not our biggest concern,” said Lai Shibiao, a project manager with Ningbo Venture Capital Guiding Fund Management Co (NBVC Fund), a non-profit government-backed VC.

“The problem is that there are not enough ideal projects or the good ones have been picked up by others, mainly large international companies,” Lai claimed.

He said the newly established 1 billion yuan (US$163 million) NBVC Fund has invested in three to four projects so far this year, better than expectations.

“I think the suspension of initial public offerings may have played a part by preventing the VCs from looking for small- and medium-sized enterprises,” Lai said.

Lai said he is interested in Xin’s anti-cancer drug project. Xin claims that the project needs about 10 million yuan in funding because the company has not been set up yet.

Lai would help connect Xin with other interested VC firms and let them decide the investment needed to get the project started.

The Ningbo government intends to use all available initiatives to increase to 10,000 the number of talented returnees who start businesses by 2020. It is also part of China’s Thousand Talents Program that aims to attract professionals from all over the world, who agree to settle in China and receive subsidies and benefits.

Shen Ting, a doctor, and her team have been one of the beneficiaries of the subsidies.

In March 2012, Shen’s team established the Ningbo Nanolite Systems Co in the Ningbo Research and Development Park, which is part of the High-tech Industrial Development Zone in the city, because she wanted to bring the company’s cutting-edge technology back to China. The company is still building its main R&D and production plant.

Under the government’s policies, the company will get a 10 million yuan funding to help start up its business and scientific research.

The company will also get a guaranteed loan of 10 million yuan, or venture capital investment, by a fund company depending on the development of the project.

 

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