Business Incubator

By+Yuan+Yuan

When Chinas biggest online com- merce company Alibaba rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange on September 19， its CEO Jack Ma thus became the wealthiest man in China. Yang Yong， a senior graduate from Peking University， was on also in the United States at the time， and chose to share his experiences of Chinesestyle group funding.

Yang， now President of Peking Universitys Alumni Venture Association， met with students at Harvard， MIT， Stanford as well as people from Silicon Valley who are interested in Chinese business startups.

With Jack Ma claiming his efforts are to help fledgling entrepreneurs to start a business， Yang retorted that his groups funding plans， which operate in a smarter way， will be just as popular in a few years. Yang added that while Mas headquarters were in Hangzhou， Zhejiang Province， he had chosen Beijings Zhongguancun area， which is considered the center of business startups in China.

Business in cafés

Zhongguancun， located in the northeastern Haidian District of Beijing， became a household name in the early 1980s when it was chosen to be built into the “Silicon Valley in China.” In 1988， it was officially recognized by the Central Government when they bestowed the title of “Beijing Hi-tech Industry Development Experimental Zone” on it. In 1999， it was renamed the Zhongguancun Science and Technology Zone.

In the 1990s and 2000s， Zhongguancun was packed with buildings filled with vendors selling electronics that would barter with customers. The market boomed for a number of years until online giants like JD.com emerged won customers over with transparency and express delivery， leading to fewer customers for Zhongguancun.

In April 2011， a café opened on the second floor of a shabby hotel in Zhongguancun. The logo was so small that few people on the street would have noticed.

For the first few months， Su Di， the owner of the café talked to every customer stepping in about their goal—to help build a platform connecting investors to startups.

Three months later， while Su was frustrated with the café， a young college student received his first 200，000 yuan （$32，520） from an investor in the café.

Encouraged by this， Su persisted and more cases followed. In February 2012， Haidian authorities named Garage Café an innovative incubator for fledgling startups.

“The decision to make Garage Café an incubator was opposed by some people in the government，” said Guo Hong， Director of Zhongguancun Administrative Committee “They said ‘how can a cafébe an incubator？ but after visiting， they changed their opinion.”

Everybody who goes to Garage Café can use it as an office and work for the whole day for the cost of a single cup of coffee. The café also offers a 3D printer， a meeting room with， iMac computers and other services for business startups. “You can feel the heat of business startups and we can see the promising future of these energetic people right here，” Yang commented.

It was proved to be a right decision. Garage Café now has become a model for Zhongguancuns innovation. At the end of 2013， Su was invited to go to Silicon Valley in the United States to open a branch café beside Stanford University and near many important angel investment companies.

In early 2014， Garage Café opened officially. Customers can pay $19 to stay there for the whole day and use the cafés high-speed Internet connection for video conference calls and other purposes.

The success of Garage Café is not a fluke either. 3W Café and Beta Café are two other famous cafés in Zhongguancun that cater to business startups.

Inspired by their success， Yang founded 1898 café in 2012， which takes its name from the year Peking University was founded. Yang and his partners invite successful entrepreneurs to their café to share their experiences every weekend and help young undergraduates get a feel for the market.

Yang believes his group funding model will create many more opportunities for startups. In fact， using his group funding model another café was opened at the Financial Street this year.

Hi-tech

When He Bofei made the decision to quit his job in Silicon Valley and start his own business in Zhongguancun， his friends in the United States could not understand him.

“They thought it was too difficult when there is the involvement of government as a potential customer，” said He， whose business Deep Glint develops computational vision and artificial intelligence. “To be frank， I had similar concerns before I decided to go for it.”

Hes first meeting with the government of Zhongguancun swept all his concerns away. “The first sentence they said to me was—what can we do for you，” said He.“They are never late for any meeting and offer any possible help as long as they can. Even the government in America cant help this much.”

Zhao Yong， the cofounder of Deep Glint， was the former researcher at Google and was one of the developers for Google Glass. They started their business in a three-bedroom apartment in Beijing in 2013 and within one year， it has grown up to a company worth 1 billion yuan （$167 million）. “Now our products are used in the Tiananmen Square and three state-owned banks，” said He with excitement.

Chen Xinyi， an employee at Deep Glint， used to be a senior student at Princeton University until she won the Thiel Fellowship award for her work in computer vision which led her to work at Deep Glint.

“We have many great employees in the company，” said Chen. “This is one of the advantages of Zhongguancun. Chinas most prestigious universities， Peking University and Tsinghua University， are close by and provide a wonderful talent pool for business startups.”

Guo Hong revealed that Zhongguancun Science Park has seen more than 6，000 new tech enterprises registered annually.

Companies based in Zhongguancun have filed more than 18，100 patent applications， an increase of 18.2 percent year on year.

In June， Zhongguancun invested a further 100 million yuan （$16.7 million） for a new innovation-focused street that to help the area attract more startups and investors. There are 17 business incubators like Garage Café on Inno Way， the first street dedicated to innovation in the country.

“Before， when we said we want to make Zhongguancun into Chinas Silicon Valley， it ended up as a noisy electronic market. Now I can say we finally have got access to the spirit of Silicon Valley， which is innovation and creativity，” said Guo.