News & Events

Source: Science and Technology Daily

When the maple leaves in Canada are colored with autumn every year, it is just the day when a group of top technology entrepreneurs come to Beijing. Some of them cherish the childhood obsession of “changing the world”, some are bent on putting the late night inspiration into practice, and some simply want to deepen their entrepreneurial feelings.

Since last year, the China Canada Joint Venture Camp (CAMP) has created such an opportunity for Canadian entrepreneurs: the founders of the selected team will go to China to participate in a two-week entrepreneurship training camp in the autumn of that year, including visits, studies, exchanges, roadshows, etc.

Wang Tong, the founding partner of China Canada Joint Venture Camp, told the Science and Technology Daily: “Through the activities of the training camp, Canadian and Chinese entrepreneurs can greatly promote their understanding of China’s entrepreneurial environment and China’s venture capital environment; at the same time, it also brings new ideas to Chinese entrepreneurs and venture capital circles and more understanding of North American innovation.”

China Canada Joint Venture Camp is an international virtual accelerator program jointly sponsored by Haidian Park Management Committee of Zhongguancun Science Park, Ontario Center of Excellence, and China Canada Angel Alliance, and undertaken by Dahe Venture Capital. It aims to actively advocate innovation, entrepreneurship and cooperation exchanges with a global perspective, build an exchange and cooperation platform for investors and entrepreneurs from China and Canada, practically promote scientific and technological innovation cooperation and entrepreneurial culture exchanges between China and Canada, create an international innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, and serve the international lifestyle of innovation and entrepreneurship.

10 projects are carefully selected every year

In April 2015, the China Canada Joint Venture Camp was announced to be established in Canada. In October of the same year, the China Canada Joint Venture Camp was officially launched in Beijing at the Zhongguancun Venture Street branch of the National Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation Week.

Finally, the Ontario Center of Excellence and the China Canada Angel Alliance carefully selected 10 excellent project teams from more than 60 entrepreneurial projects of more than 40 universities in Ontario, Canada. Entrepreneurial fields include overseas study services, legal services, children’s education, career planning, online tourism, medical equipment and innovative hardware. The entrepreneurial team selected in the first phase of the China Canada Joint Venture Camp carried out a two-week study, investigation and exchange activity in China, and organized entrepreneurs to visit Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi, Sohu, Microsoft, APUS, Zhendi and other well-known technology companies.

“Our goal is to help selected entrepreneurs in China and Canada find suitable potential cross-border partners and mentors, and provide them with training, resources, including some investment projects.” Wang Tong said.

It is understood that the China Canada joint venture camp plan will select about 10 companies from hundreds of start-up projects in Canada each year, and the selected companies will accept the virtual incubation plan and participate in the training camp. Each company will receive equity investment from the Ontario Center of Excellence in Canada, up to $300000, and enjoy the priority of the next round of financing. At the same time, the China Canada Angel Alliance will also give the project an appropriate proportion of investment (125000-250000).

Up to now, the member teams of the China Canada Joint Venture Camp have developed rapidly as a whole in 2015, and 4 of the 10 venture teams in Phase I have received the next round of investment.

Innovation needs an international perspective

Speaking of the original intention of establishing the China Canada Joint Venture Camp, Wang Tong said that China’s venture capital needs to be further internationalized. “Chinese investors have invested all over the world. Although real estate investment and mergers and acquisitions are not uncommon, venture capital has less coverage in the whole innovation investment. China’s current venture capital should have a more international perspective,” said Wang Tong.

All along, China’s science and technology circle has not stopped the pace of innovation, and a number of influential ace enterprises have emerged. Wang Tong believes that the Chinese style innovation in the past 20 years has two main driving forces: technological innovation and consumption upgrading. Consumption upgrading is more of a business model innovation. “For example, in the past, most people used to buy things in physical stores, but now a large number of shopping e-commerce have emerged, and people are more enthusiastic about online shopping. This innovation is caused by model innovation,” said Wang Tong.

On September 24, Yin Hejun, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology, revealed in his speech at the 2016 Pujiang Innovation Forum that China is accelerating its integration into the global scientific and technological innovation system. At present, China has established scientific and technological cooperation relations with 158 countries and regions, signed 110 intergovernmental scientific and technological cooperation agreements, and more than 200 Chinese scientists have assumed leadership positions in international cooperation organizations, actively attracting international high-level entrepreneurial talents to China for entrepreneurship and innovation.

“I think the real technological innovation in China is relatively weak at present. Made in China needs to strive to reach the level of intelligent manufacturing, and Chinese style innovation has entered a new stage. We need more valuable technological innovation, and we cannot do without international exchanges and cooperation,” said Wang Tong.

The China Canada Joint Venture Camp has chosen North America, which has a strong innovation driving force, as one of the most active innovation centers in the world, with relatively free flow of talent and technology.

Why not take the lead in “Silicon Valley”? Wang Tong has such an opinion: Silicon Valley is the world innovation center, and some local innovation capital and innovation capital around the world are very concentrated. The competition is fierce, and it is difficult to get close to the core quickly. “Compared with the United States, although Canada’s local venture capital mechanism is slightly weak, it has a large number of talents and high innovation ability, which makes it easier to enter Canada’s innovation center,” said Wang Tong.

Look for the most valuable technology enterprises

It is understood that the first phase of the Sino Canada Joint Venture Camp includes an application platform called application board, which mainly helps international students apply to universities in North America. They rely on online autonomous systems and charge universities instead of applicants. It is this innovative model that makes Wang Tong think that the Chinese market with huge potential has not been covered, so he chose to extend an olive branch to the application board.

In this venture capital circle, everyone cries “capital winter”, and investors’ eyes really become sharper? Wang Tong said that in the past, investors were most concerned about what kind of user value the enterprise created, rather than the ability to make money. Many large enterprises lose money when they go public. Even Alibaba, Youku and Facebook didn’t make money when they went public. However, they provide user value, and users cannot live without their services. This value is their survival value, which will one day be transformed into commercial value. Insist on investing in valuable enterprises and innovation.

One year later, the appearance of China Canada Joint Venture Camp made foreign entrepreneurs know that a group of Chinese angel investors seriously supported entrepreneurship in Canada, which made Canadian entrepreneurs have more expectations of the Chinese market.

Wang Tong said: “In the future, we hope to solidify the form of China Canada Joint Venture Camp, which can really promote and enhance China’s innovation rate, and graft some foreign high-tech onto China’s large consumer market. I also believe that China’s channel and market innovation, coupled with foreign high-tech innovation, may lead to greater innovation. China Canada Joint Venture Camp is willing to work hard for this goal.”

In the future, Wang Tong envisioned two possibilities. One is that R&D centers of large Chinese enterprises can also come to Canada to improve efficiency. The second is some technology research and development centers in Canada, which can use Chinese patents. China is leading in some application technologies such as programs and architectures. “We have a roadmap, based on Canada, covering places like Boston and Silicon Valley.” Wang Tong said so.

In October this year, the team selected for the second phase of the China Canada Joint Venture Camp will appear in China’s venture capital circle. The quiet and beautiful autumn leaves of Beijing are filled with the world’s most cutting-edge “scientific flavor”.