(Yicai) March 26 — Shanghai has began sign-up procedures for the newest “Startup in Shanghai,” an annual worldwide innovation and entrepreneurship competitors held for over a decade that serves as an vital platform for town to find and domesticate small and medium-sized expertise companies and construct an innovation ecosystem.
This 12 months’s occasion will proceed to lean in direction of hard-tech initiatives, give attention to supporting future industries, improve the empowerment system for collaborating corporations, and welcome science and expertise innovation initiatives from world wide, Huang Lihong, director of the Shanghai Technology Innovation Center, stated at a launch convention.
Since 2012, the competition has attracted almost 70,000 sci-tech innovation corporations, of which 94 have gone public. As an vital venue for discovering and cultivating tech companies, the awarding course of is extra inclined in direction of laborious tech enterprises and initiatives.
Since final 12 months, the competitors has allowed groups and corporations that haven’t but been registered or had been newly arrange to participate within the occasion to assist initiatives nonetheless within the thought stage get accepted to enter the market prematurely.
Some 453 initiatives from unregistered corporations entered the competitors final 12 months, whereas 66 award-winning groups had registered and established enterprises as of Dec. 31, in response to information from the Shanghai Technology Innovation Center.
Yixin Technology, a startup that designs, develops, and industrializes digital design automation software program for the new-generation 2.5- and third-dimensional stacked chips, gained the primary prize within the workforce class, the highest award, final 12 months with out having been registered as an organization when it signed up for the competition. It settled in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang Science City through the launch of this 12 months’s occasion.
The choice to settle in Zhangjiang was pushed by the world’s stable basis within the upstream and downstream of the provision chain, Zhao Yi, founding father of Yixin Technology, informed Yicai. “There are many chip design companies in Zhangjiang, so this environment surrounded by customers can significantly shorten the path from research and development to the market for our products.”
Long-term steady coverage and monetary assist are indispensable for SMEs which can be within the progress stage. According to information offered by the competitors’s organizers, 32 individuals final 12 months obtained fairness financing value a complete of CNY2.8 billion (USD404.4 million) from a number of main enterprise capital companies.
“For entrepreneurs, the financing environment is an important consideration when choosing a location for their companies,” Yu Haitao, founding father of Maizhen Electronics Technology, stated to Yicai. “Industrial investment funds set up in Shanghai over the past two years are also a factor that attracts companies to settle in the city.”
Maizhen Electronics gained the Enterprise Excellence Award final 12 months and has since settled in Shanghai’s Jiading district, rising right into a high-tech enterprise specializing in the R&D and manufacturing of latest micro-electro-mechanical system evaluation chips and scientific evaluation devices.
The 2026 “Startup in Shanghai” competitors will full individuals’ qualification verification by June 15. The remaining spherical can be held in October.
Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev