Innospring, the first US-China incubator, has officially launched its seed fund and support network for Chinese startups seeking American exposure and expansion as well as American companies seeking a piece of China’s pie.
The InnoSpring Seed Fund will provide seed financing for selected startups that have already been part of Innospring’s accelerator program, a three month boot camp covering business development, market research, business organization and other essentials for succeeding as an entrepreneur. The seed fund includes leading investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers (KPCB), Northern Light Venture Capital (NLVC), Tsinghua Entrepreneurs & Executive Club (TEEC) Angel Fund, GSR Ventures and China Broadband Capital (CBC).
“Fostering cross-border innovation is a big part of our mission and vision,” said Deng Feng, Founding Managing Director, Northern Light Venture Capital, said in a statement. “Supporting InnoSpring and its entrepreneurs by contributing resources and expertise is one way that NLVC can give back to the startup community.”
Innospring announced the seed fund earlier this week at an invitation only event. Chosen startups enjoy the benefits of office space, startup capital as well as connections to VCs and angel investors, mentoring, workshops, assistance in team building and research, in-house resources that include accounting and paralegal services, referrals to professional services to propel international expansion, and access to public agencies in China.
Innospring will select 15 companies every six months for its seed program, which includes an initial investment of $25,000, plus potentially another $250,000 from the TEEC Angel Fund upon completion of the program. In exchange, Innospring will receive equity determined on a case by case basis.
The seed fund will be managed by Teec Angel Fund’s co-founder Eugene Zhang.
The accelerator has also established a “China Gateway Program” that provides domestic startups with strategic consulting in order to better tackle China’s market. It also provides Chinese companies with US connections, virtual offices and office hours to help them launch businesses in the US.
The first slate of incubatees include:
- Accusilicon, a semiconductor company
- Dewmobile, mobile-to-mobile communication company
- Hillion Tech, an interactive video technology company
- Hillstone Networks, network security solution
- Mugeda, a HTML5 animation platform
- Narvelous, a social game company
- Peaya, software for the second brain
- QuestBid, a virtual assistant and online bid system
- SecuredInside, a software (SaaS) security company
- Sunube, clean technology company focused on greening data centers
- Trusper, a stealth social network company
- Weaver Mobile, PhotoBox for Facebook
The accelerator is certainly well positioned to ease the transition between East and West, and vice-versa. It has the office space capacity for up to 40 startups for the six-month boot camp. Considering the growth potential of China’s market, it could certainly breed companies that re-create the planet on both sides of the world.