So far, Zhao Pu's life can be divided into two stages: before 2014, all the way to the halo, smooth and smooth, stable and stable; after 2014, all the way to danger, ups and downs, twists and turns.
As a watershed in 2014, Zhao Pu founded Lu Cheng Industry (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., the word "Cheng" represents the position of the assistant to help others, and the company's vision is to help scientists complete the scientific and technological innovation of new materials from 0 to 1, and to be the most professional platform for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in the field of new materials in China and even the world.
The transformation cycle of scientific and technological achievements is long, the risk is high, a successful transformation may require more than ten years of investment and waiting, in this long road of exploration, he is willing to cultivate and grow together with enterprises.
Fortune 500 executives embark on the entrepreneurial path
Zhao Pu has been a "child of others" since he was a child, admitted to the Department of Precision Instruments of Tsinghua University in 1998, and after graduating with a master's degree in 2005, he came to Shanghai and worked in two fortune-500 foreign-funded companies Schneider Electric and Dell, and soon became a corporate executive. During his time in Schneider, he also went to Work in France for a year and a half.
In 2014, he resigned from the team of foreign enterprises with superior conditions and sound systems and founded Lucheng Industry (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. In the process of dealing with universities, he regretted that many valuable papers were shelved and could not be transformed into scientific and technological achievements.
"At that time, the transformation of scientific and technological achievements could not improve the ranking of universities, could not come up with funds for enterprises, and was too risky for capital, and if there was no good institutional mechanism, it was really prohibitive." Zhao Pu analyzed. Since all parties are "short of interest", how to mobilize their enthusiasm?
He saw a benchmark company, IP Group, a UK-based listed company with ip operations, established in 2000, whose main business is to provide seed-stage investment to companies under the university, as well as IP commercialization operation services, in the form of equity returns. So far, the institution has reached cooperation with 33 British, American and Australian universities and research institutes such as Oxford University, Cambridge University and Imperial College London, covering about 17% of the world's top scientific research results, with a market value of more than 11.1 billion yuan this year.
In front of Jinyu, Zhao Pu decided to take IP Group as the goal and start with the universities where the three founders are located to make China's own professional scientific and technological achievements transformation platform.
Use professional services as a "partner" for scientists
The essence of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements is to turn really good technology into products, into commodities, and into valuable returns. How to do a good job in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, Zhao Pu's eyes are on scientists. "Lu Cheng positions himself as a partner of scientists, not an agent, and scientists are a very special group of people who need more emotional interaction and recognition than purely interest relationships." Zhao Pu said, "Partner means that we and scientists are one, a more complementary and more integrated relationship." ”
Another feature of Lu Cheng is professionalism. Whether it is the type of material, such as metal, inorganic, polymer, fiber, membrane, etc., or the industry system, such as automotive, electronics, energy, chemical, textile, etc., they are involved in and start to build pilot bases in the subdivision field.
Ten years of grinding the front line, this is the intuitive feeling of Professor Gao Chao of Zhejiang University after personally participating in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. In 2011, he published a paper on graphene and fiber compounding, but with funding constraints, the concept didn't even get out of the lab. With the help of Lu Cheng, in 2014, Gao Chao obtained 10 million yuan in financing and completed a laboratory test; in 2017, Lu Cheng Fund invested 55 million yuan to help him carry out the pilot test; in 2020, a state-owned enterprise in transition invested hundreds of millions of dollars in this project.
"At present, China's scientific and technological achievements transformation has two advantages, one is that the government, as a participant and competitor in the market, is willing to pay, and the other is that China has a very large number of traditional manufacturing industries, and their needs for transformation and upgrading are very urgent." Zhao Pu said. In response to this trend, Lucheng has formed cooperative relations with nearly 20 local governments, established research institutes or hard technology incubators in subdivisions in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Ma'anshan and other places, and built different forms of innovation centers in Anhui, Zhejiang, Shandong, Jiangsu, Guangdong and other provinces.
From a single transformation to creating a standardized ecology
Engaged in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements for many years, Zhao Pu has a deeper thinking about this matter, he believes that the transformation is divided into three levels: first, to complete the transformation from 0 to 1 in specific projects; secondly, it is necessary to form a batch transformation in a field; and finally, to provide modular, standardized and intelligent services for scientists who are willing to transform, and become a long-term ecology.
The future development direction of Lucheng will still focus on the two aspects of the fund and the base. "The transfer and transformation of scientific and technological achievements is inseparable from the economic development of the region, and at present we have a lot of layouts in the Yangtze River Delta, and we are also actively making layouts in the Greater Bay Area, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Chengdu-Chongqing regions." Zhao Pu said.
A series of material systems and industry systems of the research institute has been in an orderly planning, it is revealed that the first is the functional ceramics research institute, has gathered 11 scientists with transformation projects, Zhao Pu hopes to achieve the docking of scientists and leading enterprises in the field to promote the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements. "At the same time, we also have plans to build a research institute for optoelectronic materials, which is in cooperation with the key laboratory of the Ministry of Education." Zhao Pu said.
What is even more gratifying is that the market environment has also improved. In the past, enterprises did not attach importance to scientific research investment, but Zhao Pu noted that since last year, a very large number of central enterprises, especially listed companies, have begun to attach importance to technological innovation, which has provided them with a large number of customers. They also intend to train a group of technical managers with investment and consulting capabilities, with professional services, waiting for the return after "ten years".