There is always a legend of Zhejiang University in the rivers and lakes.
Not long ago, Xaira Therapeutics, an AI pharmaceutical company, announced its establishment and received more than $1 billion in investment commitments from well-known venture capital institutions at home and abroad, setting a record for the annual seed round of financing. Behind the company, a Chinese face is eye-catching - co-founder Huang Buwei is from Zhu Kezhen College of Zhejiang University.
Coincidentally, at the beginning of the year, two start-up companies from Zhuyuan students, Xreal and Waveform Intelligence, announced the completion of financing within two days. From Pinduoduo Huang Zheng in the Internet era to the queuing financing under the wave of hard technology, Zhu Kezhen College is known as the "best college" of Zhejiang University, and has always been Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
At present, the entrepreneurial corps of Chinese universities is rising. Compared with the resumption of diplomatic relations in northern Qingbei, Zhejiang University has a more different temperament, which is known as "the university with the highest entrepreneurship rate in China", and has also become the "most entrenched 985" in Chinese universities by virtue of the birth of the richest people.
Alumni of Zhejiang University raised 7 billion yuan in one fell swoop
One year after its establishment, the unicorn team is luxurious: the former Stanford president leads the way, the Nobel Prize winner joins, and the board of directors has a number of star investment institutions, scientists, business executives or government figures. There is also a key figure standing behind - co-founder Huang Buwei.
Huang Buwei was admitted to the School of Pharmacy of Zhejiang University in the college entrance examination to study pharmacy in the direction of oncology. In his freshman year, he prepared to study abroad, and once recalled in an interview that his undergraduate career was "either doing experiments or on the way to doing experiments". Later, Huang was admitted to Johns Hopkins University to study for a master's degree in biomedical engineering, and received a doctorate from David Baker, a pioneer in protein design.
During this period, Huang Buwei germinated the goal of founding a Chinese pharmaceutical company, hoping to have his own R&D patents to help Chinese people with diseases live a better life. To this end, he also minored in the Intensive Innovation and Entrepreneurship Management Program (ITP) at Chu Ho Ching College, supplementing his background in business.
如今，他带着Xaira Therapeutics一同出现在创投圈。
最新一轮融资显示，主要投资者ARCH Venture Partners和Foresite Capital承诺提供超过10亿美元的资金，F-Prime、NEA、红杉资本、Lux Capital、Lightspeed Venture Partners、Menlo Ventures、Two Sigma Ventures、帕克癌症免疫治疗研究所 (PICI)、拜耳、Rsquared 和 SV Angel 等一众国际顶级投资机构紧随其后。
ARCH Venture Partners, the lead investor, is a top life science investment institution in the United States founded in 1986 and one of the first venture capitalists to start the industrialization of laboratory technology.
The agency's founder said he believes AI will transform the entire drug discovery and development enterprise faster than anyone could have imagined. "We're all waiting for a moment." As not long ago, Nvidia Jensen Huang claimed that AI+ medicine will be the next golden track.
The best college of Zhejiang University
They lined up to announce the financing
Through Huang Buwei, the famous "most bullish college" in the rivers and lakes emerged.
Here, there was a queue to announce the financing. At the beginning of this year, in just two days, two alumni of Zhu Academy, Xreal and Waveform Intelligence, launched a company, and successively announced financing. The former, a unicorn with AR glasses valued at more than $1 billion, raised $60 million this time by Xu Chi, an alumnus of the mixed class of Zhu Academy, who worked as an engineer at NVIDIA.
Witnessing the shock of Microsoft's first-generation AR glasses, Xu Chi established Nreal, the predecessor of Xreal, with his old classmates Xiao Bing and Wu Kejian from Zhuyuan in 2017, and has grown rapidly, gathering investors such as Sequoia China, Hillhouse, NIO Capital, Shunwei Capital, Hongtai Fund, Yunfeng Fund, CICC Capital, CPE Yuanfeng, Huachuang Capital, iQiyi, Alibaba, Kuaishou and so on.
The recent Pre-A round was not only led by Lanchi Venture Capital, but also ushered in investment institutions such as West Lake Science and Technology Venture Capital and Lotus Angel, which are very geneatic of Zhejiang University, and individual investor Fei Gesheng is also an alumnus of Zhejiang University.
Throughout last year, the financing of students of Zhejiang University has become more intensive. RESS Zhixin, established by Deng Jian, an alumnus of optoelectronics, has completed the Pre-B round, and has Lenovo Venture Capital, Tongchuangweiye, Zhongke Chuangxing, Qingke Venture Capital, Hubble Investment, etc. Sam Mei Xieer, which was built by Liu Shiwen, a microelectronics major, raised two rounds of financing last year, and Shenzhen Capital also came; Kunyou Optoelectronics, which was established by Lin Tao of the industrial high school class, is favored by star institutions such as Zhongke Chuangxing, Source Code Capital, Hubble Investment, and Intel Capital.
According to incomplete statistics from the Zhejiang University Alumni Association, in 2023, enterprises established or helmed by Zhu University alumni such as Integer Intelligence, Chixiao Technology, Duoyi Technology, Instanta Technology, and Xinzao Biotechnology have completed financing.
Zhu Yuan, which is well-known in the venture capital circle, was formerly known as the mixed class of Zhejiang University (Engineering) established in 1984, and has become a "trump card powerhouse" for the cultivation of science and engineering talents under the principle of "engineering talents and science training". The college has Turing Class, Bard Year Class, Qiushi Science Class, Engineering High School, Intensive Class, etc., and the training categories cover all 7 departments and 12 disciplines, and it is getting stronger and stronger.
In the past, it was rich in scientific research bulls; Today, it has quietly become the cradle of entrepreneurship.
Over the past 20 years, more than 200 entrepreneurs have been born here, and the intensive class alone has given birth to at least 128 start-up companies, with a total market value of 100 billion, and the entrepreneurship rate of students here has exceeded 20% five years after graduation, which can be called the "first class of entrepreneurship".
The most talked about are Huang Zheng and Pinduoduo. Huang Zheng was sent to a hybrid class, left Google in 2007 to start a continuous business, achieved financial freedom, and founded Pinduoduo in 2015. Everyone knows the later story: in 2018, Pinduoduo, which was only 3 years old, went public fiercely, and Huang Zheng became the richest man in China's post-80s.
Later, Huang Zheng donated US$100 million to his alma mater to set up the Star Science Fund and establish an innovation laboratory. Longcheer Technology, which landed on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange not long ago and has a market value of 25 billion on the first day, founder Du Hongjun is also an alumnus of Zhu University.
The venture capital circle has gathered a force from the Zhu Academy: He Xiaofei, a resident of the 96-level mixed class, founded the unmanned driving company Feibu Technology; The two founders of Kujiale, Huang Xiaohuang and Chen Hang, studied together in the mixed class of computer science and technology; There are also He Qing, founder of Xingxin Technology, Wang Jian, founder of Concentrating Technology, and Liu Ruopeng, chairman of Guangqi Technology...... Numerous.
Why Zhejiang University?
On the coast of the East China Sea, the wind and clouds are turbulent.
Founded in 1897, the predecessor of Zhejiang University, "Qiushi Academy", was born in Puci Temple, where outstanding young people such as Chen Duxiu and Li Suizhi studied. At the time of the 77 Incident, Zhejiang University had a period of beacon fire, and later traveled to many places, during which it insisted on running the school. At that time, a group of scientific giants such as Su Buqing, Chen Jiangong, and Pei Shizhang gathered here, and Zhejiang University rose to become one of the most influential universities in China, known as the "Cambridge of the East".
100 years of accumulation, remarkable achievements. In the latest ESI subject rankings, 21 disciplines of Zhejiang University ranked in the top 1% of the world, materials science, engineering, and chemistry ranked in the top 1‱ in the world, and molecular biology and genetics, environment/ecology and other disciplines ranked in the top 1‰ in the world. In the 2023 Ranking of World-class Subjects, Zhejiang University has become the university with the most disciplines on the list in history with 53 disciplines, and its disciplines such as instrument science and biomedical engineering have all entered the top 10 in the world.
It is also known as "the university with the highest entrepreneurship rate in China". As one of the earliest universities in China to carry out innovation management and incorporate entrepreneurship education into the school education system, Zhejiang University has offered nearly 200 entrepreneurship courses for more than 20 years, with strong scientific and technological innovation genes. In the "2023 Zhejiang University Alumni Listed Companies List", 323 alumni entrepreneurs of Zhejiang University manage and control a total of 290 listed companies, with a total market value of nearly 5 trillion yuan. As of June last year, Zhejiang University has given birth to 30 unicorn companies, accounting for more than 9% of the number of unicorns in the country.
Many alumni stories are familiar: Duan Yongping, an alumnus of the Radio Department, started an industrial business, incubated national brands such as BBK, OPPO, and VIVO, and donated nearly 1.5 billion yuan to his alma mater after retirement; Zhu Jiangming, majoring in electronic engineering, established in 2015, has landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; Entrepreneurs such as Shi Yuzhu of Giant Network, Liu Zuohu of OnePlus Mobile, Cao Xiaochun of Tigermed, Lv Jianming of Tongce Medical, and Yi Zheng of Flush are all from Zhejiang University.
What impressed me was that last year, the semiconductor circle set off a financing boom in Zhejiang University, and companies such as Senmei Xieer, Chuantu Microelectronics, Garen Semiconductor, Qianjing Semiconductor, and Jindiekong were all supported. There are also Xreal, Rokid, Light Particle Technology, Kunyou Optoelectronics, etc., which support AR half the sky; Jiazhi Technology, Feixi Technology, Yunshen Technology, Hai Robotics and other brave robot tracks; Xieneng Technology, Hoymiles Co., Ltd., and Hydrogen Technology formed a new energy group...... Zhejiang University is full of figures.
The road is long, I will go up and down and seek.
Looking back on recent years, the tide of hard technology entrepreneurship has risen. In past exchanges, many investors have mentioned that school background is an important criterion to measure the direction of the founder, just as there is a Tsinghua school of AI recently; There is a South China School of Technology in car building; New energy has a Zhongnan faction; The robot has a Harbin Institute of Technology.
Nowadays, the Zhejiang University faction is rising, and everyone is working together to create a magnificent era of science and technology.