Visiting TusPark, located in Beijing’s Zhongguancun hi-tech hub (sometimes called “China’s Silicon Valley”) you can really feel the enthusiasm of the many startups, all striving to land investment deals and grow bigger.
On Thursday, a group of energetic young entrepreneurs, investors and volunteers gathered at Slush Up, an event held by Slush China.
Slush is a non-profit event organized by a community of entrepreneurs, investors, students and festival organizers. Originally launched in Finland, Slush has become a leading European startup event where founders and tech talents meet with top-tier international investors, executives and media.
“We aim to help the next generation in China get venture capital funding, and help venture capital firms locate potential startups,” Wang Chen, the CEO of Slush China told AllChinaTech.
She added that China has a strong cultural environment of entrepreneurship, with a wave of more and more young people creating startups, helping them realize their dreams of entrepreneurship.
In 2015, Slush brought together 15,000 attendees, including 1,700 startups, 800 venture capital investors, and 630 journalists, all from exactly 100 countries.
In October last year, Slush China brought together 1300 attendees, 250 startups, 340 investors, and over 80 media from China and the world to Beijing. This year, Slush China aims to attract more startups and investors, building bridges and inspiring more and more Chinese youth to launch their own companies.
The event on Thursday attracted many Chinese famous venture capital firms, including SinoGlobal Capital, Gebi Ventures and Legend Capital, many individual startup firms, as well as the Vice Minister of Finland Juha Gustafsson, and Helsinki City Mayor Jussi Pajunen, who were there to show their support for Chinese startups.
Peter Vesterbacka, the CMO and “Mighty Eagle” of Angry Birds , shared his views on the robust Chinese tech market, telling AllChinaTech that they will launch the 3D movie Angry Birds in China. Yu Zhichen, the CEO of Turing Robot, announced that they will launch a toy robot for Kids soon.Turing Robot is the first Chinese company engaged in research on the commercialization of artificial intelligence.
China has been seeing an increasing trend in entrepreneurship over the past two years. Young people, especially university students, show a keen interest in running their own companies. According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security China, 478,000 university students launched startups in 2014, an increase of 4% over 2013. The Chinese government has implemented favorable policies to encourage university students to launch startups.
In short, an ecosystem is emerging. Slush China can be a bridge to help guide and match young startups with venture capital.
(Top photo taken at the event)