Beijing is China's Silicon Valley, says co-founder of billion-yuan fund

Li Zhu smiles during an interview with chinadaily.com.cn in Hangzhou, Sept 22, 2016. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Li graduated from the prestigious Tsinghua University, or China's Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in 1989 in Beijing. Upon graduation, Li chose to stay in the Chinese capital and has remained there ever since.

With more than 10 years of experience in angel investment, he is a staunch preacher of the concept of "starting in Beijing".

In his opinion, "Beijing is the only place in the world that has an entrepreneurship environment that could parallel that in the Silicon Valley in the US."

The reasoning is clear.

Beijing is home to China's top universities, big internet firms, and investment institutions. It accounts for about 50 percent of China's angel investment.

"There are more than 500,000 engineers alone in the Huilongguan area in northern Beijing," said Li.

He also pointed out that the valuation of a startup in Beijing could be reasonably twice as high for a same project in second- or third-tier cities, where the absence of internet giants would make it difficult for those new companies to find suitable partners on the way of growth.

"Beijing is a very good place for you to start new businesses," according to Li.

The fund set up a 55,000 sq m innovation space in Huilongguan area in Beijing in partnership with Tencent and the district government of Changping. Two months after opening, 70 percent of the space has been inhabited.