From Guangzhou, the heart of the Pearl River Delta in south China, I would like to welcome you to Startup Grind Guangzhou. I would like to thank Derek and the Startup Grind team for supporting us in our ambition to bring Startup Grind to China and particularly to Guangzhou. Startup Grind Guangzhou events will be organized by a group of 4 startup enthusiasts from China, the USA, India and the Netherlands, all with their own experience and startup stories.
Guangzhou is an excellent place for Startup Grind to land in China. It’s a city with more than 15 million people, top technological universities, and is an important financial centre in South China; plans are ongoing for its own stock exchange by 2016. Located less than 200 kilometers north of Hong Kong, with a history of commerce and trade going back over 1000 years, Guangzhou is a city built on entrepreneurship. It is an excellent proving ground for entrepreneurs of all kinds.
Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong - a province over 85 million strong, and home to cities like Shenzhen (Foxconn, ZTE, Huawei) and Dongguan (over 100,000 factories). Guangzhou is the center of Guangdong’s Pearl River Delta, one of the largest manufacturing centers in the world. Factories here have been building products for global brands for the last 30 years, and lately we’ve seen more ambition to create more value added products under local brands. We believe that a combination of the wide and varied manufacturing base, along with software engineering talent, and Guangzhou’s innate entrepreneurial spirit will lead to new disruptive ideas from this region.
It is our passion for startups and our conviction that Guangzhou has the potential and ingredients to become an important tech startup community next to Beijing and Shanghai, that led to our desire to bring the Startup Grind network here. With Startup Grind Guangzhou we hope to create place for like minded people to get together, get inspired and exchange ideas that will lead to better and more tech startups in the region. Below we have selected four very successful icons in the Guangzhou tech community that will paint the picture of the potential of this city and the local talent.
Youmi.net - Youmi Mobile is one of the largest mobile advertising networks in China, each month serving billions of targeted and personalized ads on the mobile web through their Mobile Advertising Network.
Netease (Nasdaq: NTES) - Established in 1997, Netease has grown to become one of the most powerful internet brands in China. Now a well established player in the news and gaming markets, the company has more than 600 million users across email, games,various web portals and a micro-blogging service.
3G.cn - Founded in 2004, 3G.cn is one of the largest app publishers on the Android platform. The company received funding from IDG Capital and others in 2010, and now boasts over 160 million registered users across the world.
UCWeb Inc. - A leading provider of mobile internet software technology and application services. Since its inception in 2004, UCWeb's mission has been to provide better mobile internet experience to billions of users around the world.
Startup Grind Guangzhou will holds it first event on December 14 and the event will take place at the Beta Café. Our first speaker will be Chen Di from Youmi.net and he will share his story behind the success of the first Chinese mobile ads network supplier.