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Creative environment linking money, ideas
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WANG Mengqiu, a former Facebook and Twitter technician who received his doctoral degree at Stanford University in California, came home to Hangzhou to start a company making tiny, foldable drone cameras that take video and photos.
He was backed by the Zhejiang United Investment Group, which funded his Zero Zero Robotics Co to the tune of US$15 million. The first products were released last April and were very popular.
Wang’s company is now valued at US$150 million, and he credits his business success to the entrepreneurial environment in Hangzhou.
“It’s like the Silicon Valley,” said Wang. “The city has an active economy for private ownership, a work base of people who have been employed at the likes of Alibaba and NetEase, and a government that encourages and supports entrepreneurship.”
Zhejiang United Investment Group was launched two years ago to connect private wealth with innovative ideas and promising startups. The founders of the group are nine corporate giants from fields such as smart appliances, new energy, communications and machine manufacturing.
The group is just one of the hundreds of investment companies based in Hangzhou’s Qiantang River Financial Harbor. The site is home to banks, financial institutions, e-commerce platforms, trusts, investment funds, insurance companies and government agencies.
Located in eastern Jianggan District, the harbor sits on the Qiangtang River, which is considered the “mother river” of Zhejiang Province.
Two months ago, the Zhejiang government released a “1+X financial map,” outlining a large area by the harbor and 11 financial towns along the river in Hangzhou and nearby cities. The 11 will be expanded.
By 2020, according to the plan, the area will host more than 3,000 private equity and wealth management firms and a financial trading floor with asset market capitalization of 1 trillion yuan (US$145 billion).
Zhou Guanxin, vice president of Zhejiang United Investment, said he is excited by the prospects.
“Hangzhou has a very competitive industrial base, and that generates large demand for financing,” he said.
Shi Zhan, deputy director of the Jianggan District Development, Reform and Economic Bureau, likens Hangzhou to second-tier financial cities in the world, like Geneva and Brussels.
“Being international is a shortcut for success,” he said.
Yang Yuxiao, who graduated from Cambridge University, is the founder of the Overseas Chinese International Financial Development Center, a 26-story site he calls a “vertical Wall Street.”
The center houses Internet financial platforms, retail outlets related to financial products and wealth management firms.
Yang said it plans to woo investment companies like J.P. Morgan, Bank of Singapore and American International Assurance.
The Internet is a key plank in development of the harbor.
Weidai.com, a peer-to-peer platform that has its headquarters there, reported revenue of more than over 70 billion yuan last year, with a record with 500 million yuan of trades in one day alone.
Its neighbor, East Sea Commodity Center, reported its transaction volume hit 50 billion yuan just five months after its launch as Zhejiang Province’s first agriculture products e-commerce wholesale platform.
“Our website helps farmers solve the equation of demand versus supply, so that products don’t go to waste,” said Kong Deqian, vice general manager of East Sea. “For example, we monitor orders for wool and ask dealers to pay deposits before the shearing season begins.”
The website also helps smaller franchisers with loans, based on storage levels in warehouses.
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