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Today Chinese consumers are using smartphones to pay for purchases and check on their e-bank as the country's digital financial services become a way of life for the young and sophisticated.
Helping drive the trend is Zhongguancun Science Park, an icon of innovation in Beijing, which now has a range of e-finance companies. One of the star performers is 91JinRong.com Inc.
The company's founder Xu Zewei was born to a banking family. Even when young, he hoped to design a way of improving the efficiency of bank employees so his parents would have more time to spend with him.
When he finished college his dream was still alive. After discussions with angel investors, the idea of changing service patterns from traditional banking was confirmed. He saw that the Internet could enhance efficiency and lower costs.
In 2011, he set up 91JinRong.com Inc with an investment of 5 million yuan ($817,000) from an angel investor. The company had fewer than 10 staff members at the time. But the money was far from enough to support the company's development. Xu was luckier than many other startup entrepreneurs. They often fail due to financing problems, but he got another round of investment from a venture capital fund jointly established by the China Broadband Capital and Zhongguancun Venture Capital Funds.
Backed by the investment and CBC's rich management experience, 91JinRong.com Inc got through the worst days and now has its business covers 87 cities across the country. The company has established cooperative partnerships with more than 300 banks and financial institutions nationwide including Sunshine Insurance Group and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Guo Hong, director of the Zhongguancun Science Park Administrative Committee, said there is now a consensus that the level of investment in fresh entrepreneurship will determine the development level of the overall high-tech industry. The Silicon Valley, for example, attracts about 40 percent of the total venture capital funds in the United States.
Recognizing such investment is the catalyst for high-tech, the administrative committee established China's first government-guided entrepreneurship fund at the end of 2001. In 2006, Zhongguancun selected four venture capital partners and established the joint funds in 2007.
After years of development, Zhongguancun is now the top choice for people to start a business and most active area for venture capital. Its venture capital accounts for nearly 33 percent of the nation's total. Zhongguancun is also improving the fund management system and enhancing cooperation with top venture capital partners over a wider range. Currently it has participated in the establishment of more than 30 venture capital funds worth a total of 17.8 billion yuan covering such strategic emerging industries as mobile Internet, new energies and biomedicine.
As of May, those funds injected more than 4.2 billion yuan in 181 high-tech companies, including 128 based in Zhongguancun.
haonan@chinadaily.com.cn
