Microsoft Cultivates Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support Ecosystem for Startups in China

BEIJING, July 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Microsoft Ventures Accelerator (MVA) Fourth Class Demo Day took place in Beijing, with 10 startups in the accelerator class demonstrating their achievements in the past six months to venture capital firms, industry experts, partners and media. Microsoft Venture Accelerator also announced the names of the 19 startups selected for its fifth class as it marked the second anniversary of MVA in China. In addition to continuing its commitment to providing free support for the class members, Microsoft Ventures Accelerator reiterated its commitment to providing comprehensive resources and support to Chinese startups and a growing number of partners in order to build a global startup support ecosystem to help Chinese startups to grow and expand worldwide.

"Microsoft is strongly committed to helping dynamic Chinese startups realize their potential globally through the program," said Ya-Qin Zhang, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Corporation, Chairman of Microsoft Asia-Pacific R&D Group, at the event. "We are very excited to hear from class members that Microsoft Ventures Accelerator has empowered them in substantive ways. This is a very important way for us to contribute to China's innovation-driven development. We will continue to leverage our technological advantages and industry resources to help startups improve their global competitiveness and contribute to a sustainable startup and innovation ecosystem around the world."

Vanessa Gao, CEO in Residence of Microsoft Ventures Accelerator Greater China, said, "We have been making continuous efforts to accelerate the growth of our class members through technological support, training, market and user matchups, talent recruitment, and financing assistance. While fully integrating internal and external resources, we have also entered into strategic cooperation with partners in Hong Kong and Taiwan, as we provide startups with diversified global support for growth. Looking forward, we will continue to refine our acceleration plans in light of the practical needs of startups to further empower them on the journey to success."

Leveraging its leading advantages in areas such as cloud computing and big data, Microsoft is working to build an open global platform for Chinese startups. During the recruitment for its fifth class, Microsoft Ventures Accelerator announced that all recruited startups will have opportunities to use its offices for free across multiple countries such as the United States, India and Israel. This provision of resources and offices will reduce startups' costs for overseas operation, and open up a larger platform for them in their efforts to go global. In order to transcend geographical constraints so as to provide support for more excellent startups and diversify team backgrounds, Microsoft Ventures Accelerator has also entered into strategic cooperation with innovative enterprise incubation programs in Hong Kong and Taiwan to encourage excellent startups to join the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator program.

On Microsoft Ventures Accelerator Global Startup Day held in San Francisco in June, 11 tech startups from China, the United States, Britain, India and Israel were selected from the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator program to showcase their achievements to more than 150 professionals from venture capital firms, investment banks and IT companies. Three Chinese firms – Testin, Allmobilize and Guardtime demonstrated the extraordinary strength of and potential for Chinese tech startups and gained recognition and resources from leading global partners.

The recruitment for the fifth class was also attended by Rahul Sood, Global General Manager and Partner of Microsoft Ventures. He said that Microsoft Ventures Accelerator will spare no efforts in providing Chinese startups with Microsoft Ventures' unique global perspective and a platform from which they can overcome national barriers in receiving global support. In June of this year, Bill Gates visited the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator class in Beijing, where he shared his views on innovation and entrepreneurship with the startups and praised the achievements of Microsoft Ventures Accelerator in China.

During today's demo day, Microsoft Ventures Accelerator celebrated its second anniversary in China with startups from the first four classes along with new members from the fifth class, and mentors, partners and venture capital firms. Over the past two years, Microsoft Ventures Accelerator in China has supported 66 startups from different industries and areas and provided them with 60 best-in-class business mentors, 150 hours of training, more than 350 interns and more than 1,000 resumes from experienced professionals. MVA-supported startups have received an average of RMB1-1.5 million in resources each. Of the 66 startups, 90 percent have obtained funds from investment institutions to greatly accelerate their growth. Of the startups graduating from the fourth class, PICOOC, a mobile Internet company focusing on smart home devices, obtained USD21 million in series B financing during its six-month period in the MVA program, with sales topping 60,000 units. SegmentFault, China's largest youth developer community, has attracted nearly 200,000 developers, while MYBANK, a startup committed to building an Internet finance cloud and personal banking platform, signed contracts with ten financial institutions, reached 50 million users, and obtained RMB10 million in financing during its six-month acceleration.

Hundreds of startups applied for the fifth MVA class, and eventually 19 were recruited after rigorous rounds of evaluation. The startups cover a wide range of areas, including one-stop cloud services to accelerate app development; low-cost loans for individuals and small businesses that use financial big data; Internet marketplaces that help designers and creators to materialize their business value; smart digital healthcare services for mother and infant health that utilize unique combinations of software and hardware; remote vehicle diagnostics and data analytics; indoor location technology and services; wearable device development and design; and low-cost distributed denial-of-service (DDos) prevention services for businesses. Most of the 19 startups in the fifth class are in their initial stages, with some recommended by MVA Hong Kong and Taiwan partners. The fifth class of Microsoft Ventures Accelerator will last for six months, starting in July 2014 and ending in January 2015.

Since the launch of Microsoft Ventures Accelerator two and half years ago, the program has successfully accelerated 205 startups worldwide in Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, London, Paris, Seattle and Tel Aviv. In addition to the support and resources provided by MVA, the startups have the opportunity to learn about emerging trends in global innovation and entrepreneurship to help them make a truly unique and global impact. As more and more startups join Microsoft Ventures Accelerator, a global startup acceleration and support ecosystem is taking shape.

About Microsoft Ventures

Microsoft Ventures is a global initiative to help entrepreneurs turn brilliant ideas into great companies. We work with startups at every stage of maturity to provide the tools, resources, and expertise they need to succeed. The initiative is broad-based, and includes a community program, accelerators, and a seed fund. Our approach helps startups scale their business, bring innovative services to market and reach new customers.

Visit Microsoft Ventures at www.microsoftventures.com to learn more about how Microsoft is helping the next generation of smart companies take flight.

About Microsoft Ventures Accelerators

Microsoft Ventures Accelerators enable top entrepreneurs to launch their company through an immersive 3-6 month program. Startups accepted into the programs gain access to business mentors, technical and design experts, office space and resources to help entrepreneurs quickly scale their business. The accelerators are located in several cities around the world, including Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, London, Paris and Tel-Aviv.

For more information on Microsoft Venture Accelerators in Beijing, please visit:
http://www.microsoftventures.com/Accelerators/Beijing.aspx
Weibo – http://weibo.com/yunjiasuqi
WeChat – mvachina

Appendix

Members of the Fifth Class of Microsoft Ventures Accelerator in China (listed below in no particular order)

1. AVOS Cloud

AVOS Cloud is a one-stop cloud service that accelerates application development by providing developers with first-rate tools, platforms and services while helping them to get rid of the heavy burden of backend development through reduced development cycles and increased upgrade speeds.

2. Perspect

Perspect is a mobile augmented reality map application designed to provide the best in augmented reality geographic information area. Perspect's map feature offers an intuitive presentation of topographic and geographic data in addition to traditional electronic map functions.

3. Quant Group

Quant Group is a financial big data company. The company aims to leverage machine learning and data-informed risk pricing to achieve optimal personnel and capital allocation and generally accessible low-cost financing.

4. Teambition

Teambition is committed to improving productivity by providing applications in task management, knowledge sharing, document sharing, and scheduling in project management. Teambition offers an excellent mobile client to help users collaborate at any time, from anywhere.

5. miiiCasa Taiwan Inc.

miiiCasa is committed to building an easy and intuitive home cloud service platform to bring the convenience and joy of the Internet to people of all ages. The miiiTV, for example, provides a personal cloud-based electronic program guide (EPG) which enables users to enjoy their favorite content across platforms including mobile devices, home theater systems and vehicle infotainment systems.

6. Shanghai Yicun Network Tech Co., Ltd.

Shanghai Yicun is China's leading enterprise cloud storage server provider. Nutstore, its core service, is designed to improve work efficiency and protect data security. The service now has two million personal users and more than 10,000 business users and manages dozens of billions of user files measured in PB, with annual growth of sales exceeding 200% in the past two years.

7. Beijing Zhongle Duoping Cultural Media Co., Ltd.

Zhongle Duoping is committed to creating and developing all-new cross-platform entertainment products. Its latest application "High 5", launched during the FIFA World Cup 2014, enables users to take part in TV quiz shows in real time. The company is working to develop a number of entertainment products that integrate TV, the Internet and the real world seamlessly.

8. Beijing Next Direction Technology Co., Ltd.

Next Direction is a technology company that specializes in indoor location technology and services. It is committed to applying low-cost, high-accuracy mobile indoor location services to existing location-based services (LBS), mobile user behavior analysis and rich-context precision marketing to create value for businesses.

9. Beijing Taihuoniao Technology Co., Ltd.

Taihuoniao (taihuoniao.com) is committed to helping designers to monetize their talent, and helping consumers to find innovative and attractive design products and enjoy the beauty of original design.

10. AdvanPro Limited

AdvanPro Limited is a Hong Kong-based high-tech company, aiming to be a global leading supplier of soft smart sensing technologies and to improve people's quality of life, by providing value-added products and services for medical, healthcare, sports industries based upon its trademarked sensing technology, SOFTCEPTOR™.

11. KANgroup

KANgroup is committed to helping customers improve their personnel management and market competitiveness in the informatization process. The company's founding team consists of former executives from the world's top three staffing firms.

12. Beijing Qingguo Technology Co., Ltd.

Beijing Qingguo Technology Co., Ltd. is a startup company that focuses on mobile Internet. The company developed the first voice-supported personal accounting application, Qingguo Jizhang, which was launched on WeChat in January 2014 to wide acclaim. The company will release a second-hand marketplace application in July 2014, which the company hopes will increase social resource circulation efficiency.

13. Beijing EoeMobile Wireless Technology Co., Ltd.

The company operates a leading online education platform for IT professionals in China. Its founding team has ten years of experience in operating online IT forums and created the largest mobile developer community in China. The platform has rich online and real-world training resources.

14. Beijing Jihai Zongheng Information Technology Co., Ltd.

The company is committed to providing modern enterprises with all-new SaaS geographic information services. Its mission is to provide the simplest, most efficient and useful geographic information services for enterprises in China and globally, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises, while leveraging the value of geographic information in business operations and decision-making.

15. Duya Technology Co., Ltd.

Duya Technology, founded in 2014, is led by a team of highly creative young people, focusing on artificial intelligence and next-generation operating systems research. 

16. Beijing Raiing Medical Technology Co., Ltd.

The company, established in 2011, is committed to providing IT-powered digital healthcare services for mothers and infants. It aims to become a company that helps solve practical maternal and child health-related problems.

17. Lianche (Shanghai) Information Technology Co., Ltd.

The company was established in September 2012 and specializes in remote vehicle diagnosis and vehicle data analysis services, focusing on vehicle data collection and data mining. It aims to become a trusted third-party vehicle data service company.

18. Qingsong Wisdom (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.

Qingsong's innovative self-service SaaS platform helps enterprises rapidly deploy DDoS cloud-based protection services. The company will provide full access to its protection technologies for more IDC providers and comprehensively improve their DDoS attack mitigation capabilities, providing Internet companies with more flexible protection.

19. Fuzhou Luyou Technology Co., Ltd.

Luyou Technology is a high-tech company that specializes in machine learning and computer vision-related hardware and software development. The company is committed to developing new-generation intelligent visual perception systems and pattern recognition algorithms for intelligent buildings and smart homes to provide users with all-new intelligent offline service experiences.

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SOURCE Microsoft