CHANGZHOU, China, April 26, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Changzhou National Hi-Tech District, one of China's leading high-tech industrial development zones located in the Yangtze River Delta, and Shenzhen Capital Group Co., Ltd., a venture capital firm specializing in seed, early stage and later stage investments, signed a strategic cooperation agreement on April 18 to enhance resource integration and jointly set up a new talent investment fund.
Under the agreement, the fund, under a program that it has dubbed the Changzhou Talent Plan, will invest in privately-held high-growth technology companies and start-ups led by entrepreneurs with stellar CVs and established track records in the intelligent manufacturing, energy conservation, environmental protection and new materials industries, as well as in other emerging sectors. A key goal of the fund is to enhance the appeal of Changzhou National Hi-Tech District as a location choice for entrepreneurial businesses and their owners, with the expectation that a large number of those businesses will apply for consideration in the talent plan and choose to settle in the district. In addition, the two parties plan to explore further areas of cooperation including assistance that can be offered to manufacturers in terms of facility upgrades, development and popularization of a standard for enterprise management policies and practices, as well as integration of Chinese and international capital markets, among others.
Over the last few years, Changzhou National Hi-Tech District has actively sought to promote and execute on its model for bringing together talent and capital, organizing recruitment teams that have gone to Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen to meet with well-known venture capital firms and sign strategic cooperation agreements with them, in a move to bring in projects manned by top talent and backed by quality capital. To date, the district has brought in roughly 100 projects with the equity venture capital investment in each firm above 5 million yuan (approx. US$750,000) and the cumulative equity investment exceeding 1.5 billion yuan (approx. US$218 million). Looking forward, Changzhou National Hi-Tech District plans to continue developing its model for attracting top talents and investments to promote the optimization and upgrading of local industrial structure.
