The incubator broke the "life and death proposition" and the venture capital company issued a "negative list"
"Games, Internet finance and pure blockchain entrepreneurship-related start-ups will not be accepted." This is the "negative list" issued by Shanghai Zero Bay Venture Capital Co., Ltd.
In the opinion of Zhang Zhigang, the general manager of the company and the "No. 1 waiter in Zero Bay", these projects do not match the concept of creating social value. "Industry and society are developing faster and faster, and incubators should not create wealth for a certain enterprise. Services should be aimed at promoting sustainable social development.”
Since 2013, as an important platform for cultivating technology companies and a "nursery" for emerging industries, the incubator industry has been "sought after", and a large number of incubators have appeared "blowout".
However, around 2018, when capital became more cautious, the upsurge of incubators "blooming everywhere" remarkably subsided, and there was even a "wave of closures".
How to break the game has become a "life-and-death proposition" that the incubator industry is eager to explore.
In addition to transformation and upgrading, technology business incubators have upgraded professional services in addition to regular services, trying to create a new ecosystem.
The past 2021 is the first year of the "14th Five-Year Plan". The market's attention to hard technology has risen to an unprecedented height. Technology business incubators have been given more important tasks, and industry development and industrial upgrading have ushered in a new turning point.
The incubator industry has entered a "fast iteration" mode
"There is technical demand in the market, and laboratory technology cannot find a scene, so here we are."
In recent years, enterprises in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, Quanzhou, Fujian and other places have "tech treasure boxes": the hard technology incubator Maker Headquarters from Beijing Zhongguancun has built a "magpie bridge" spanning more than 2,000 kilometers for local enterprises in urgent need of transformation and upgrading. Technologies deeply hidden in universities and research institutes in Beijing have found application scenarios and entered the market quickly.
At the beginning of its establishment at the end of 2013, the Maker Headquarters did not focus on the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and most of the service groups were entrepreneurs who focused on the innovation of Internet models in the society.
"But in 2015, we found that the model innovation, which had developed rapidly, had developed to the extreme, and it was difficult to make new breakthroughs, and technological innovation had been pushed to an unprecedented height."
Chen Ronggen, a partner of Maker Headquarters, told a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that in the face of fierce competition, traditional industries urgently need to promote industrial transformation and upgrading through technological innovation, which will be a new opportunity.
Where to look for technology?
They set their sights on Beijing's universities and research institutes.
Chen Ronggen said frankly that there are too many technical categories in universities and research institutes, and it is impossible to understand the whole field, so they lock in the field of artificial intelligence that is easier to "get started", focus on laboratory technology investment and incubation, and create "scientific and technological achievements". Realize the first stop".
This transformation has also made the maker headquarters profitable.
In Chen Ronggen's view, along with the transformation and upgrading of traditional enterprises and the continuous emergence of new technology enterprises, the demand for innovative technology is very strong, "meaning that we will serve more and more customers, on the one hand, we can find cutting-edge technologies and provide them with To provide entrepreneurial support, on the other hand, we can find demand in the industry and transfer technology out, so that we can form a complete entrepreneurial ecosystem.”
To this end, in recent years, they have also taken cutting-edge technology projects out of Beijing, and established long-term and stable cooperative relations with more than 10 national top 100 county and city enterprise clusters in Fujian Quanzhou, Zhejiang Jiaxing, Shandong Qingdao and other places. Different types require more customized technologies, which is a big challenge for entrepreneurs. This is the role of incubators. With the advantages of industrial clusters, we can communicate with many similar customers at the same time. After meeting the needs of a company , other similar requirements will not have much change.”
In addition to transformation and upgrading, technology business incubators have upgraded professional services in addition to regular services, trying to create a new ecosystem.
"Zero Bay" was born under the joint efforts of government departments, industrial parks, colleges and universities, and state-owned enterprises. Zhang Zhigang prefers to call it a "global innovation and entrepreneurship cluster". He hopes to create an open innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. It is an alternative existence in the incubator industry.”
In his view, such an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem should include a variety of service institutions, "including government services, resources and services related to innovation and entrepreneurship, and various stages of industrial development, etc., which must be able to form high-density collaboration and jointly solve high-efficiency solutions. industrial development."
Unlike many incubators, he made a "negative list" for "Zero Bay": games, Internet finance and pure blockchain entrepreneurship-related start-ups will not be accepted.
"If we only use technology to pursue profit, it will destroy the overall atmosphere of innovation and entrepreneurship. What we want to support is the innovation ability of universities and industrial boundaries, build various innovation and entrepreneurship systems, and help them grow up. This is an incubator. original intention and mission”.
Zhao Gang, a researcher at the China Academy of Science and Technology Development Strategy, who has been concerned about the development of technology business incubators for a long time, believes that national policies continue to increase support, and incubators have become an important carrier for innovation and entrepreneurship.
"There are not many technology business incubators that have actually incubated unicorns, listed companies or core technologies. While formulating relevant evaluation standards, the state and local governments are also cleaning up incubators of mixed quality, which is also forcing the industry to transform and upgrade."
He believes that incubators should not be "big and comprehensive" when choosing projects to be incubated, but should be more professionally focused.
"Whether it is to issue a 'negative list' or focus on local industrial clusters, the incubator industry has realized the urgency of transformation and upgrading. In particular, it will make efforts to develop characteristic industrial clusters and create a new innovation and entrepreneurship ecology, which may show a greater development in the next few years. developing".
Industry will become the "new customer" of the incubator
Since 2020, multiple regional coordinated development strategies have continued to advance in depth, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area have become new sources of power to activate high-quality economic development.
This also gave the incubator industry a new direction.
Han Wei, Vice President of TusHoldings Co., Ltd. and Executive President of TusStar, observed that many incubators are now focusing more and more on a sub-sector and field, and there are also many innovative upgrades that try to incubate models, such as deep integration with local industries and capital. Wait.
Similar to Chen Ronggen's point of view, Han Wei believes that incubators in the new era should not only help startups grow rapidly, but also the more important customers will be industries.
"Based on the Yangtze River Delta region, we see that there are a large number of traditional enterprises in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui and other places that need transformation and upgrading, but they do not know what to do. Many high-tech enterprises in first-tier cities such as Shanghai cannot find their own products. It is a practical application scenario, but it is difficult to form an effective product with simple cooperation. In addition, some large enterprises have a stronger sense of crisis, and there is an increasing demand for innovation. To gather the needs of all parties, it is necessary for professional institutions to use a large number of innovative projects in different fields to achieve cross-industry innovation.”
Tus Holdings Co., Ltd. has launched its flagship incubator "Tus Star", which is the first batch of national-level incubators recognized by the Torch Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and strives to build a global incubation network. Today, they have deployed more than 160 innovation incubation bases in more than 80 cities around the world. .
Facing the huge global incubation network, TusStar has differentiated in different regions based on industry characteristics.
After several years of exploration and practice, Han Wei felt that "integrating more deeply with the industry and playing a role in the innovation of the entire industry chain will be a new task for the incubator. Originally, everyone thought that the incubator was to create an atmosphere of innovation and entrepreneurship, but continued to serve The incubator is likely to make important contributions to the iterative upgrading and development of the industry when the start-up enterprises are behind the industry.”
Han Wei believes that the establishment of an incubator requires large capital, large platforms, and large resources, and enters a period of high-quality development. "We must consider building the core competitiveness of the incubator, seek breakthrough points, and create more sustainable development models. The services of traditional incubators are already insufficient. to support the in-depth development of the industry.”
Focusing on local characteristic industries and encouraging many incubators to develop differentiatedly, Zhao Gang also believes that this is especially suitable for technology business incubators in the western region.
During a visit to Yinchuan, Ningxia, Zhao Gang learned that when the local incubator was set up, it wanted to replicate the model of Zhongguancun in Beijing. "But Beijing has unique advantages in talent, capital, resources, etc., so copying it is definitely not possible."
During the subsequent inspection process, they found that the original local military enterprises and third-tier enterprises usually produce bearings, product materials, etc. "Although the field is very small, through the development of 3D printing technology, it is also possible to realize the existing industry. Transformation and upgrading. Because there is no need for high R&D capabilities, the demand for talents in the process of transformation and upgrading is not harsh, and it is easier to develop into a small industrial cluster by incubating related companies. Today, Ningxia has formed a 3D printing industry cluster, so The road to specialization is better.”
Public data shows that by the end of 2020, the total number of technology business incubators in the country reached 5,843, including 1,287 national-level incubators and 233,000 technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises. The incubator has become an important carrier to promote the upgrading of entrepreneurship and innovation.
Zhao Gang believes that the current problem faced by the incubator industry is that it has not yet played the greatest role in professional focus and formation of characteristics.
"The incubator itself can also create unique service characteristics, such as capital operation, legal services, human resources, etc., to form different characteristics in the division of labor and cooperate together." Zhao Gang suggested that to guide the high-quality development of technology business incubators, government departments should strengthen policies. Design, "If you want to cultivate small giant enterprises or specialized new enterprises, you must design policies based on the actual needs of enterprises. The goal of an incubator is to incubate enterprises, not to make the incubator bigger. The beneficiaries of relevant policies should be enterprises, especially After the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, it is even more necessary to understand the changes in the demands of the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises and the status quo of the incubator, and strengthen the design in line with the development.”
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Meng Peipei Source: China Youth Daily