A hidden force with disruptive potential

Global challenges have become breath-taking and solving them requires more than just a few outstanding entrepreneurs. It requires investors with a profound understanding of global technology benchmarks in their related investment fields, who can support their portfolio companies in conquering the right niche.

Today, it’s relatively straightforward to assess technological competition in the U.S., in Europe, Israel and South East Asia. With offices and partners across the globe, English as our joint language and a shared concept of information sources (such as websites, blogs, LinkedIn etc.), it has become easy for us to stay tuned and keep pace.

But with China this is different.

It’s really hard for western innovators to get a clear understanding of Chinese tech. China’s information and news infrastructure differs from what we are familiar with in the western world. Important and fundamental questions remain difficult to address. Just think:

• Where do I search for information?
• How do I identify early-stage Chinese businesses that give me a hint of what to expect of future competition — particularly in deep tech fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum tech, agri tech and smart manufacturing?
• How do I put developments in perspective with trends in Europe?
• How do I understand the underlying structures that contribute to the success of Chinese startups?

Chinese startups are going international while we are sleeping

Of course, researching respective data and understanding it does require considerable knowledge, effort and time — time that VCs or Business Angels might feel like they don’t have — but a greater issue is one of focus and awareness.

China still plays a secondary role in the European startup world: the Chinese market usually comes last in European startups’ internationalisation plans. The demand for China-specific accelerator programs, like German Accelerator China or International Startup Campus, is growing, but still remains low compared to the demand for market entry programs in the U.S. and other Asian countries.

BUT: WATCH OUT. — Chinese competition doesn’t stop just because it’s not considered.

Chinese businesses still encounter low hurdles when expanding to Europe, while it’s getting increasingly harder for international companies to be successful in China. So while it’s understandable that European startups are not pursuing a China market entry at the present time, Chinese companies will not wait.

Know your competition

Understanding Chinese competitors is therefore crucial for our long-term competitiveness and success.

But in a time when China is partially closing itself off from the west and less international employees are coming to China, the information bridge that we once had is starting to fall apart. Strict lockdowns like the one in Shanghai fostered emigration flows and increased the effect. Some China trend platforms have paused operations due to high turnover in staff.

While some experts have started moving back to the Middle Kingdom, the number of internationals in China is yet decreasing further. And benchmarking in China requires access to expert knowledge on the ground. 

Understand tech in China

On the positive side, there are still several remarkable tech blogs, podcasts and live casts such as the English formats Interconnected, China Tech Investor, German Innovators, China Tech Chat, Tech Buzz China and the German format China Impulse, summarising tech trends and ensuring constant information flow for their audiences.

Experts like best-selling author Ashley Dudarenok enable us to stay tuned with developments in Chinese e-commerce & marketing. News platforms such as Sinocism and China Table take us deep into economic trends and geopolitical contexts. And new investor newsletters like the one published by CIMK, a German-Chinese startup based in Nanjing, help uncover spin-off und founding trends at pre-seed stage — information which was largely hidden in the past.

So why is it still so difficult to stay in tune with China’s fast-paced tech development? — It’s a question of TIME and ACCESSIBILITY.

What if there was that ONE platform making it VERY easy for you to get a quick grasp?

Bringing together specialist information from a wide range of sources and synthesising it for investors and innovators who want to get a grasp of Chinese tech startups in NO TIME, is our mission at NIUCAP VENTURES.

We believe that European investors and innovators need:

(a) efficient access to information,
(b) tailor-made insights on Chinese competition and tech,
(c) summaries complementing their due diligence.

NEXTLEVELSHAPERS

NEXTLEVELSHAPERS was initiated by NIUCAP VENTURES in June 2023 with the mission to help European innovators and investors stay on top of the fast-paced development in China’s deep tech world.

With the NEXTLEVELSHAPERS STARTUP PROFILES you get…

• direct insights into Chinese tech on a deal-to-deal / single startup basis (incl. the latest information on funding rounds, investors and more),
• contextualisation with Chinese market trends and success mechanisms.

BRIEF & CRISP. — EASY TO ASSESS. — WHILE DRINKING YOUR MORNING COFFEE.

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