E-commerce group Alibaba and innovation and venture capital company Innospring have launched an innovation hub in Jiading, a district in the Chinese city of Shanghai best known for its links to the automotive industry.
The Alibaba Innovation Center will combine with InnoSpring’s Shanghai Hongkou incubator to provide support and infrastructure to assist companies based in the US and other foreign countries that are looking to expand into China.
One of the partnership’s first moves was to launch a demo day backed by Jiading’s local government and Tsinghua Entrepreneur and Executive Club that allowed US-founded startups to pitch to local investors.
Eric Cheng, general manager of Alibaba Innovation Center (Shanghai Jiading), said: “This is an exciting venture for InnoSpring and Alibaba, two companies that have great entrepreneurial expertise and passion for the global exchange of business and technology innovation.
“We look forward to working with exciting startups from around the world and helping them jumpstart their enterprises in China and across borders.”