Dao Ventures affiliate, formerly New Ventures China, launches new SME initiative.
Beijing, China -- A new endeavor called Green Society targeting at environmental ventures in China has recently been launched by the Green Startups Accelerator, a Dao Ventures philanthropic affiliate which was formerly New Ventures China under the Beijing-based Institute of Environment and Development, in collaboration with two top universities in China.
With a focus on recruiting and accelerating environmental small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China, Green Society will kick off this September and has already started recruitment of environmental ventures across the country.
Tsinghua University and Harbin University are two of the top-tier engineering schools in China. Their innovation and entrepreneurship platforms, Tsinghua X-lab and Harbin University Tianyi Camp, joined hands with the Green Startups Accelerator for the first time, hoping to identify and nurture new ventures which have sustainability as a core mission to realize their business ambitions.
The Green Society incubating initiative welcomes startups which already have a mature product or solution and have managed to sell their product or solution in the market. As it is seeking young startups to support, gross revenue of these ventures should be no more than 10 million RMB (~US$1.45 million). These early-stage ventures must be able to demonstrate certain positive social impact as well, aside from their environmental impact, while generating healthy revenue for self-sustainable business operations.
Green Society will offer pro-bono mentoring services from experienced entrepreneurs, design courses targeting at the core needs of young startups, and help new ventures further refine their business models. New ventures would have a chance to make improvements in terms of their product, marketing strategy, and team building before they get introduced to proper investors via this initiative.
“Dao Ventures is focused on providing catalytic capital and ongoing business support to our invested companies handpicked for their potential impact that could scale up not only in China, but also internationally. And this initiative will certainly serve as a viable deal pipeline for us, along with our long-time affiliate Green Startups Accelerator,” said Tao Zhang, Founding Managing Director of Dao Ventures. ”
Here below is the timeline for the Green Society incubating initiative:
Sep. 8-10 Tsinghua X-Lab Incubating Session (Beijing)
Oct. 13-15 Harbin University Tianyi Camp Incubating Session (Harbin)
Nov. 10-12 Green Start-up Accelerator Incubating Session (Beijing)
Dec. Graduation Session
For China-based environmental new ventures who are interested in applying for this initiative, please contact Walter Ge at walter.ge@ied.cn. #