Asia Startup Pulse

Driven by the rise of China's middle and high-income classes and their crazy pursuit of better products, China is regarded as the engine of the global luxury industry. Brands from all over the world are rushing to enter the market and reach Chinese customers in different ways.

E-commerce is something that brands cannot ignore. They have to accelerate the adoption if they want to have a say in this market.

Today, we want to look back at the era when China's luxury e-commerce was just emerging. How did vertical e-commerce platforms bring overseas fashion and high-end brands to Chinese consumers? How did they open up a new business battlefield, and how many innovative experiments did they run to do so? 

After that, we are going to have some hands-on insights to learn what has changed in this industry. Brand attitude? Consumers? Channels? Formats? For example, the rise of e-commerce livestream?

We are honored to invite Claire Chung, former China General Manager of Yoox Net-A-Porter Group, former vice president of global business development of Shangpin to join us and talk about luxury e-commerce over the past decade.

This is Oscar Ramos, an e-commerce investor myself over the last decade in China, and your host for today. Let’s get a comprehensive understanding of the cross-border luxury commerce today.

Show notes: 

02:26 Educating overseas brands about the China market in Shangpin

05:03 The reasons why overseas brands rejected Chinese platforms in early days

08:05 Shangpin partnered with banks to build trust with customers

10:30 First time brought Topshop to China’s online space 

13:22 Online consumers for high-end brands in China

16:37 The role of Shangpin in providing unique user experience

19:17 The importance of after-sales customer service 

22:04 The biggest changes in China’s luxury ecommerce space 

28:32 China’s innovation that is brought to the rest of the world 

30:53 How the overseas perceives the innovation from China

35:00 The new definition of luxury 

Many thanks to our guest Claire Chung; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

Welcome to the first episode of our new series “Inside the VC Mind” where we bring you the professionals from the venture capital world, who will deliver their observations, thoughts, and opinions.Today we are going to talk about the top one mistake that founders make during the fundraising process, with Helen Wong, Partner at Qiming Venture Partners, Gary Yang, Founding Partner at SkySaga capital, and Jeff Chi, Partner at Vickers Venture.

EPISODE NOTES

Our guests:

Helen Wong

Helen is Partner at Qiming Venture Partners and a founding team member at GGV Capital. Qiming is an early to growth stage venture capital firm, which currently manages four USD funds and three RMB funds with over $1.7 billion in assets.

Helen’s successful exits at Qiming include Mobike (sold to Meituan), Luojiswei (unicorn valuation, sold to Tencent), and Lagou (sold to 51jobs). Helen was awarded by Forbes as Top100 VCs in China in 2018.

Gary Yang

Gary is Founding Partner at SkySaga Capital and Director of the China Venture Capital Association. Graduated from Tsinghua University, one of the top universities in China and the world, Gary is an experienced investor who led the investment of dozens of companies, including Yanjiyou, a well-known bookstore chain brand in China, Pencil Media, an upcoming tech media focusing on startup news, and more.

SkySaga Capital is an early to growth stage venture capital firm, with a focus on industrial upgrades such as consumption upgrade and supply chain upgrade, and deep tech such as AI and biotech.

Jeff Chi
Jeff is Founding Partner at Vickers Venture Partners and Former Chairman at Singapore Venture Capital & Private Equity Association.

Vickers is a global venture capital firm with US$700 million focused on early-stage investments in Asia and beyond. The firm announced in 2017 that it has raised US$230 million to invest in startups around the world, with a particular focus on deep tech across the globe and impact investments in emerging markets. Vickers has 8 offices around the world and is one of the largest venture capital firms in Singapore and Shanghai.

Show Notes:

01:04 Talk with Helen Wong

06:14 Talk with Gary Yang

10:19 Talk with Jeff Chi

Many thanks to our guests; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

In the startup world where we value technology and experiments that leverage "quick and dirty" prototypes, what’s the role of art and design? Especially for early stage startups, how should they utilize the power of design for their products or services? If we look at brands who are expanding to different markets, how can they develop a cross-cultural design mindset that helps them gain local recognition and avoid any sensitivities?

During this week’s episode, we will discuss the value of design in early technology startups with Yiying Lu, the award-winning artist behind the Twitter Fail Whale and Dumpling emoji, named as “Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business” and Microsoft's “Top 10 Emerging Leader in Innovation”.Yiying has helped hundreds of tech startups build their brand and turn it into a competitive advantage. She believes that for technology companies, they are not B2B or B2C, but human to human, and “art is the best vehicle to communicate the core values of the human behind the technology”. 

Born in Shanghai China, educated in Sydney Australia and London UK, currently based in San Francisco, Yiying will also share one of her passions about how to leverage art to bridge the east and the west and share some cross-cultural campaigns that she has been involved in the past.

Show notes:

02:08 Introducing Yiying Lu

03:00 How design helps with product experience

05:30 The role of emotional needs in design

10:50 Design as a strategic tool for tech companies

14:40 How early stage founders should pay attention to design

19:50 Own a cross-cultural mindset

27:33 Failed campaign examples when foreign companies enter China

31:50 Yiying’s cross-cultural campaign cases

Many thanks to our guest  Yiying Lu; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

对话者：Oscar Ramos（主持人）& Sophie Yao（Pegasus Tech Ventures中国区总经理）

主题：管理Pre-IPO基金，逆全球化浪潮下的中国IPO趋势。

China is one of the world’s biggest and leading stock markets. As a result, China’s capital markets are gaining more interest from both domestic and international investors. But today, we are not talking a step back from investing in public companies and instead, talking about pre-IPO deals. 

What are pre-IPO deals? What are the risks and opportunities associated to pre-IPO deals? We also look at the typical range of investment in such deals and how similar or different are pre-IPO investors from investment bankers? We have the perfect guest to talk about the pre-IPO market today. 

Our guest today is Sophie Yao, the general manager of Pegasus Tech Ventures, which some people may know for their notable investments like SpaceX and Airbnb. Sophie currently manages a $1 billion fund that predominantly focuses on pre-IPO deals. She shares with us what goes on in the background when sourcing and investing in pre-IPO deals. We also touch upon the current economic tensions between the US and China and how that can impact companies looking to go public.

Show Notes:

1:48 Introduction to Sophie Yao

2:59 The CVC 4.0 Model

4:33 Rationale behind corporate partnering with single LP funds

6:58 The $1 billion pre-IPO  fund, what it is and why Pegasus invests in pre-IPO deals

8:04 Risks associated with pre-IPO deals

9:46 Pre-requisites in a pre-IPO deal. How do you measure returns?

12:28 Role of the pre-IPO investor in supporting companies

13:40 Evaluating potential investments

16.14 Next wave of IPOs from China

20:58 Revenue vs Technology: What matters more in deep tech investment

23:12 Does investor behavior shape the type of companies in China?

24:36 China’s STAR market and how it has performed so far

26:15 Companies doing well in the STAR market

26:45 Alibaba Ant dual IPO: Inflection point in Chinese companies' perspective on IPOs

28:41 Foreign companies listing in STAR market 

29:23 US-China deteriorating relations and impact on internationalization of Chinese tech startups

31:29 Luckin’s impact on the perception of listed Chinese companies

34:36 Lessons for Series A or B founders

36:54 Pegasus’ area of investment and how to contact Sophie

37:53 Pegasus’ Incubation program

Many thanks to our guest Sophie Yao; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

Data and digitalization are hot topics not only in the startup ecosystem but also in the corporate world. We often hear about legacy businesses looking to transform themselves by using data to improve their business but what is the actual reality of data for businesses today? How are companies building brands based around data? Are the companies ready and are they really aware of how much value they can derive from data? What obstacles stand in their way? 

To answer these questions and more, we are bringing you today a very special episode that is part of "Pathway2Innovation". A regular online and offline events series initiated by the Corporate Innovation team of Chinaccelerator that will bring together startups and corporates to explore some of the most relevant topics in the open innovation space. 

In today’s episode we are joined by Kevin Lee, CDO at IKEA China; German Torrado, Managing Director at Genetsis E-commerce; Alexis RICHEZ, Venture Development and Partnerships at ZTP (The innovation arm behind one the largest retails groups in Europe including companies like Decathlon, Leroy Merlin our Auchan); and Abel Zhao, Co-founder and CEO at TravelFlan. 

Our guests come with a particular angle on data and digitalization. With their wealth of experiences, you will gain insightful learnings on how to use data to innovate within your organization especially in a post-Covid19 world.

Show Notes

[02:11] Introduction to Kevin Lee and understanding what Ikea is doing with data and insights
[03:48] Introduction to German Torrado and Genetsis E-commerce
[04:48] Introduction to Alexis Richez and ZTP
[06:21] Introduction to Abel Zhao and TravelFlan
[09:17] Is data the new oil? How is IKEA getting value from data today?
[13:46] Awareness of data among brands and the relevance of data in their agenda
[16:56] What is the readiness level of companies? Are they really aware of how much value they can derive from data? Are they talking about data is the new oil but have no idea what it is exactly or are they ready to extract value from data?
[20:50] Reaction from brands about data that is hard to get
[22:53] Most relevant obstacles in the present time to drive digital transformation
[35:35] Impact of GDPR for businesses
[37:35] Getting key stakeholders to buy into the “Data is the Future” narrative and Performance metrics when implementing a data strategy 

Many thanks to our guest  Kevin Lee, German Torrado, Alexis Richez and Abel Zhao; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

How Citybox Finds Own Position Among Fierce Unmanned Retail Competitions, with Co-founder & COO Neo Lv 

By the end of 2017, over 200 unmanned store startups were launched in China, which attracted more than US$620 million investment just during that year. However, after the hype faded, only a few companies survived from the fierce competitions, and Citybox is one of them.

Citybox started their business on a totally different path. As a result, their smart vending machine solution can be flexibly deployed in different scenarios which allows them to find the right channels for distribution. In 2017 and 2018, Citybox raised Series A and B from top VCs, like GGV, ZhenFund and SIG China.

Our guest today, Neo Lv, is one of the company’s co-founders and today’s COO. He will take us back to the initial stage of the company and share how Citybox decided to take a very different playbook in terms of business strategy, coming from a deep understanding of the industry and a very lean startup technology approach. Instead of spending their funding on business development and developing hardware, Citybox concentrated their efforts to automate their operations. Today, Citybox is also a great marketing tool for brands to test and launch new products thanks to the data they can collect from a very loyal customer base.

Show Notes:

02:11 Introduction to Neo Lv and Citybox

04:47 Unmanned retail hype in 2017 & what makes Citybox unique 

08:54 How Citybox monetizes data

12:51 How Citybox sustainably gets profitable among the strong competitions

18:27 Competitions bring new growth opportunities

24:47 How Citybox built their first generation of the smart vending machines

29:08 The future of unmanned retail

33:45 Compare China with other markets globally 

Many thanks to our guest Neo Lv; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

DeFi or Decentralized Finance has become the hottest commodity in the blockchain space today. The DeFi movement follows a suite of strong hypes in the industry after ICOs, STOs, and IEOs. Today, over $2 billion dollars worth of tokens are locked in DeFi projects.  

Some of you might be wondering what is DeFi? But once you understand the concept the real questions are: what makes DeFi so different? Is it just another hype in the space? Who are the winners and losers? Chinese investors are among the most active investors in the space, Does this bring additional value or opportunities for Chinese DeFi startups?

To help us answer these questions and more, we have invited to the show, Cao Yin, Founding Partner of Digital Renaissance Foundation, a Shanghai-based company that is helping to accelerate the future by consulting, incubating and financing projects in the blockchain ecosystem and investor in the first DeFi project launched in China.

Show Notes

[1:55] Introduction to Cao Yin

[8:46] What makes blockchain so different? Hype vs Reality?

[13:15] DeFi use cases

[17:10] Winners and Losers from DeFi

[21:26] How DeFi affects the government

[25:04] Risks of DeFi. What can go wrong?

[29:10] China's view on DeFi

[32:19] Opportunities for DeFi startups today

[33:58] Chinese DeFi investors

[36:27] Contact Cao Yin and Digital Rennaisance Foundation

Many thanks to our guest  Cao Yin; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

How do you build a global business from China? What are the opportunities and challenges for founders operating in multiple geographical locations? 

Today, we have with us Bertrand Schmitt, Co-Founder & Chairman at App Annie, a leading mobile market data and analytics platform with data on over 8 million apps and thousands of websites. Today, App Annie is one of the most trusted names in mobile data analytics.  

As someone who entered the world of analytics in the early 2000s, Bertrand is a strong believer in the role of data and metrics in helping businesses build the products their customers want. With the growth of mobile apps, the need for new analytics was the inspiration to launch App Annie. 

In today’s episode, Bertrand takes us back to the initial stage of development of mobile data analytics with the advent of the iPhone and App Store, and how he identified a problem that was yet to surface and started App Annie. We then dive deep into how he moved to China and ended up launching a global business from Beijing at a time when the company hardly had any tangible China market exposure.

Show Notes:

1:53 Introduction to Bertrand Schmitt

4:55 Early days of the mobile ecosystem and the problems within

6:28 Evolution of mobile operators' role in the industry

8:57 Centralization of content distribution in the mobile space

9:59 Apple vs Android ecosystem

10:59 Getting into the world of analytics and inspiration behind App Annie

12:26 Beginning of the China Story

14:55 Deciding to go into entrepreneurship in mobile analytics

16:30 Mobile analytics: Global problem or local (China) problem?

17:37 Perception of AppAnnie in the global market

18:57 Was China a critical element of success?

21:00 Experience of overseas fundraising from China

25:05 What triggered the move from Beijing to San Francisco

28:26 Learnings/ findings working across multiple geographical locations 

32:06 Instrumental roles that made a difference to the company

33:12 Critical moment of evolution in China’s mobile industry/ecosystem

37:00 Lessons for entrepreneurs

Many thanks to our guest  Bertrand Schmitt; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

Today we talk with Donna Li, a digital marketing veteran, who was part of the team that launched Alimama, the digital advertisement division of Alibaba, which is also the largest player by revenue in the digital advertising space in China. 

In this episode, Donna will bring us back to the early days when Alibaba, as an e-commerce company, started to explore the advertising revenue model. Donna will talk about how she worked for Yahoo China, which then became a strategic investor in Alibaba, and how she helped built Alimama. 

She will also share how she supported Taobao, a C2C e-commerce player, to beat their direct competitor eachnet which at the time had over 90% market share and was owned by eBay. At the end of the conversation, she will talk about the advertisement model in social networks as former CMO of Renren, the largest copycat of Facebook in China, and one of the most influential social networks at that time.  

Want to learn how Alibaba became successful through advertisement and is Amazon today following a similar playbook? Come join us to enjoy the conversation right now!

Show Notes:

02:06 Introducing Donna Li

03:25 How did you get started in digital marketing in China

06:06 Digital marketing in China at around 2010

10:15 Transition from Yahoo to Alibaba

13:12 Advertising: Taobao’s monetization model

18:26 Alimama: Cash Cow for Alibaba

22:15 Is Amazon following a similar playbook?

25:50 New inventor: Bytedance

29:55 Advertisement as a business model for early-stage startups

34:10 Build digital measurement currency at Nielsen

35:42 Challenges for startups

Many thanks to our guest Donna Li; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

Welcome to yet another exciting episode of the China Startup Pulse Podcast. Our guest today is Mikaal Abdulla, Co-founder and CEO of 8 Securities, a zero-commission mobile-only securities platform that was recently acquired by SoFi. From bootstrapping the business to raising an impressive 1st round of $8 million followed by successive rounds to finally being acquired by SoFi in April, Mikaal and 8 Securities have turned a full-circle.  

In today’s episode, Mikaal shares with us his experience of starting his own business after having worked at eTrade for almost a decade, his motivations, and the highs and lows he has experienced over time. We dive deeper into the lessons he learned from the prototype of the product to successive iterations that followed. We also discuss startup fundraising, learning from competitors, and the importance of taking that leap of faith at opportune moments, which could define the future for a company as it did for 8 Securities. 

Show Notes:

1:41 Introduction to Mikaal Abdulla

2:31 Motivation to Start 8 Securities

4:12 Raising the first round of $8 million

7:50 How to measure traction

8:52 The importance of understanding customer needs

17:33 Finding the balance between consumers' needs and CEO's expectations

20:38 Going mobile: a pivotal moment

28:10 Surprising discovery entering into new market

32:32 Connection between funding and breakthroughs

34:40 Learning from constraints

38:11 SoFi acquisition

39:50 Advice to founders

Many thanks to our guest Mikaal Abdulla; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]