Invest early, invest small, invest hard technology, behind the patient persistence of Lihe Scientific Innovation for 20 years

In Shenzhen, there is no lack of creativity and passion. The development history of Shenzhen is also a history of scientific and technological innovation. The development of well-known enterprises has created a miracle in this land. Shenzhen Lihe Scientific Innovation Co., Ltd. is one of them. In 1999, when Tsinghua Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd. officially settled down in Shenzhen, a big play about scientific and technological innovation also began. This is the predecessor of Lihe Technology Innovation. As the first institution to participate in angel venture capital industry in China, Lihe Kechuang has delivered a satisfactory answer with 20 years of persistence.

Up to now, Lihe has accumulated more than 3100 incubation service enterprises, nearly 500 high-tech enterprises, 30 listed enterprises, more than 160 specialized and innovative enterprises, more than 50 listed enterprises on the New Third Board, more than 300 national high-tech enterprises and more than 200 scientific and technological achievements transformation projects.

Behind such impressive data, what is tested is the absolute strength of investment institutions.

"Early investment, small investment and hard investment" is unique

As we all know, in China's venture capital industry, early investment and angel investment have always been weak links. Due to high risk, long cycle and extremely high mortality rate, capital is rarely involved. At the start-up stage, Lihe Scientific and Technological Innovation also faced a similar dilemma. He Zhen, the chairman, secretary of the Party Committee and general manager of Lihe Scientific and Technological Innovation, recalled that "the essence of capital is to seek benefits and avoid disadvantages. When faced with a long cycle and a lack of due awareness and patience for projects, some institutions tend to hesitate when making investment decisions. At that time, we lacked registered capital, so we had to start our investment business with less capital to invest early, small and hard according to our own advantages in scientific and technological talents. " I never thought that this investment style would be fixed like this. After many years, it has become the most prominent label on Lihe Kechuang.

Compared with the hardships during the entrepreneurial period, the investment environment has been greatly improved in recent years. In order to activate the liquidity of capital in the innovation market, the state has also issued supporting policies, which greatly boosted market confidence.

In 2019, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued Several Opinions on Strengthening Financial Services for Private Enterprises, proposing to actively cultivate angel investment, venture capital and other early investment forces investing in private science and technology innovation enterprises, and pay close attention to improving tax policies to further support the development of venture capital funds. In 2021, the 14th Five Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China and the Outline of Vision Goals for 2035 put forward "encouraging angel investment".

By 2022, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the Action Plan for Improving the Technological Innovation Capability of Enterprises (2022-2023), further strengthening financial support such as venture capital for enterprise innovation. Encourage all kinds of angel investment and venture capital funds to support enterprises' innovation and entrepreneurship, deeply implement preferential tax policies for venture capital investment, and guide venture capital enterprises to invest in early, small and hard technology.

Now, hard technology investment has become the industry outlet. However, as a pioneer, Lihe Kechuang completed the layout before the tuyere rose. He Zhen said, "Since its establishment, Lihe Kechuang has always insisted on using its own funds to carry out the investment incubation of early hard science and technology projects, and has also earmarked a sum of money to carry out mass investment in the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements in colleges and universities, which is also rare in the industry."

Scientific innovation industry platform with deep integration of industry, university and research

Due to the successive occurrence of trade wars and Huawei sanctions in the past few years, a consensus has gradually emerged in China that the long-term sustainable development of China's economy must be supported by independent scientific and technological innovation achievements. The transformation of scientific and technological innovation achievements is an important engine for China's long-term economic development.

In the pace of following the national strategy, Lihe Sci tech Innovation, relying on professional accumulation, has more accurately explored investment opportunities. He Zhen further said in the interview: "Our investment is now mainly reflected in the 'four orientations'. First, we are facing the world's scientific and technological frontiers, such as artificial intelligence, quantum information, chips and integrated circuits; second, we are facing the main battlefield of the national economy (digital economy, dual carbon, etc.); Third, facing major national needs, such as key components and parts, key basic materials, oil and gas exploration and development and other major technological breakthroughs; The fourth is to face people's life and health, such as new or sudden infectious diseases, chips and integrated circuits, life health, biological breeding, etc. Only in this way can we achieve a high level of self-reliance. "

The biggest challenge of early project investment comes from scientific uncertainty. Relying on the resources of Tsinghua University, Lihe Science and Technology Innovation does not define itself as an early VC of a single investment business, but is more willing to be a "science and technology innovation industry platform with deep integration of industry, university and research". This has become one of the differentiated advantages of Lihe Kechuang in the market competition. After all, in order to form a benign transformation ecology of early science and technology projects, it is necessary to have sufficient resources for production, education and research, and a group of excellent expert teams to be able to check the investment projects throughout the whole process and improve the success rate of projects. There are not many investment institutions that can both.

He Zhen pointed out that technology, talents, funds and carriers are the four core elements for the successful industrialization of scientific and technological achievements. "The root cause of the problems faced by the integration of industry, university and research is that these four elements cannot be well integrated in the market competition."

"Four chain", "Three runs" and "Double first-class" system

In the process of transforming scientific and technological achievements and incubating early projects, Lihe has encountered many common difficulties. For example, can truly advanced technology become a product recognized by the market? Is the team composed of famous brand academicians, professors and experts a qualified entrepreneurial team? In addition, some special industries, such as new materials and biotechnology, often need customized space carriers to be put into production. Where can we find these professional carriers that meet the needs of the industry?

In order to support early science and technology projects to leap over the "first mile" of achievements transformation, Lihe Scientific and Technological Innovation did not take less detours, but also went through many "open pits and underground wells". After years of experience and technology accumulation, it has finally explored a set of "science and technology innovation incubation system with deep integration of industry, university and research" - "four chains", "three runs" and "double first-class" systems. In 2015, this system won the Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Grand Prize, building the core competitiveness of Lihe scientific innovation.

Specifically, "double first-class" refers to the core business of the whole company, which is to provide first-class sci-tech innovation services and cultivate first-class technology enterprises. The "four chains" are the solid foundation for achievements transformation, including innovation chain, capital chain, talent chain and industrial chain, and strengthen the dominant position of enterprises.

The innovation chain is the source of the project. Through establishing a comprehensive cooperative relationship with the Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, national colleges and universities, scientific research institutes, overseas research institutions, etc., Lihe Science and Technology Innovation has docked a number of experts and professors in advanced technology fields and innovation and entrepreneurship teams, followed by hosting a series of events with global and national influence, such as "Smart Innovation Cup", "National Powerful Cup", etc, Collect excellent scientific and technological innovation projects from all over the world to systematically and systematically attract more scientific and technological resources to its system.

Capital chain is an essential element of development. Through forming a concept verification fund and pilot test fund in the technology maturity period with the government, Lihe Science and Technology Innovation helps enterprises to cross the "death valley" in the early stage of science and technology innovation projects. When projects have a mature business model, it helps them to introduce more capital, covering the entire process of scientific and technological achievements transformation and enterprise growth.

The talent chain is the support of innovation chain and industry chain. Through the creation and construction of a "scientist+entrepreneur" hand in hand mechanism, incubated enterprises can link a large number of strategic scientists and top talents, while Lihe also provides lifelong learning education and training platform for entrepreneurs. So far, it has cultivated more than 50000 entrepreneurs for the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area.

The industrial chain is the foundation for enterprises to enhance their market competitiveness. Through cooperation with industry leaders of many central and state-owned enterprises, Lihe Science and Technology Innovation has created a high-level, new type joint research institute, formed an innovation chain and industrial chain ecology, closely linked scientific and technological achievements with the actual needs of the industry, which not only solved the application scenario problem of scientific and technological achievements transformation, but also helped traditional large enterprises transform and upgrade, The integration of industrial chain and innovation chain has really been realized.

The so-called "three runs" are companion run, relay run and leader run. Accompanying is a hard and long-term process. The leader should do well in the first leg, and after passing the mature period of technology and the death period of innovation, the latter should be handed over to S Fund, government industry fund and real enterprises. Leading the way is to enable the investment incubated start-ups to go public through continuous M&A, investment and integration at the track of strategic emerging industries, so as to realize the development of enterprises and maximize the investment value.

It is under the "blessing" of this system that today, Lihe Science and Technology Innovation has successfully invested and incubated more than 3000 enterprises. In 2022, the research environment of Lihe Science and Technology Innovation Investment will be listed on the GEM, and the enterprises it invests in, such as Xihua Technology, Kaiyang Electronics, Anluo Technology, Wuzhijun Biology, Huibeichuan, Hydrogen Blue Times, will be awarded the honorary title of "specialized, special and new" enterprises in Shenzhen, Chengxing Communication won the second prize of "Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award" in 2021.

(Guangzhou Lihe Science and Technology Innovation Center)

Focus on the construction of the Great Bay Area and invest in Guangzhou Lihe Science and Technology Innovation Center

In particular, it is worth mentioning that in recent years, Lihe Science and Innovation has continuously increased the construction of innovation bases. The innovation base is an important platform for the implementation of the scientific and technological innovation service system of Lihe Scientific and Technological Innovation, which gathers space carriers including mass innovation space, incubator, accelerator, innovation base and other space carriers carrying the needs of scientific and technological innovation enterprises at all stages of growth. At present, Lihe Scientific Innovation has invested in and operated 38 innovation bases nationwide, and has established 7 overseas innovation centers overseas, including Silicon Valley, Boston, Israel and other regions.

In the past two years, Lihe Scientific and Technological Innovation has closely followed the national strategic deployment and focused more on the construction of the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area. In 2021, Lihe Technology Innovation officially settled in Guangzhou and successfully settled in Baiyun Lake Digital Technology City. The company plans to invest about 2 billion yuan in the construction of Guangzhou Lihe Science and Technology Innovation Center project. In March 2022, the project will officially start in Baiyun Lake, Guangzhou. Up to now, the main works of the project have been nearly completed.

In addition, the project also aims at building a global technology transfer and transformation center, moving towards the direction of building a digital technology industry cluster, which is very attractive for high-end talents.

For example, in order to create a quiet and comfortable social circle for high net worth people, Guangzhou Lihe Science and Technology Innovation Center has set up a 1200 ㎡ international talent exchange center, which is mainly open to Tsinghua alumni, entrepreneurs in residence and other important guests - to help them accumulate contacts through circle level social networking, so as to realize the replacement, complementarity and combination of resources, and obtain additional career and business opportunities, Create greater economic value. At the same time, Guangzhou Lihe Science and Technology Innovation Center has also meticulously created three new era commercial house star products, namely Qinghu, Qingwan and Qingyun, making full use of lake landscape resources to meet the life, industry and investment needs of high-yield, knowledgeable and high net worth groups in an all-round way. Among them, the Qingwan/Qingyun IMAX giant screen flat can be used as a reception hall for entrepreneurs in the bay area to meet the needs of elite groups for exchange and reception.

(Guangzhou Lihe Science and Technology Innovation Center)

It can be seen that the Guangzhou Lihe Science and Technology Innovation Center is an innovative product with great competitiveness in the market, whether from the scarcity of the product itself or the surrounding natural resources, livelihood support and human contact circles. This is also in line with the investment style of "dare to bite the bullet, dare to take responsibility" of Lihe Kechuang.

It is reported that Guangzhou Lihe Science and Technology Innovation Center will take the new generation of information technology, artificial intelligence, and new materials as the three leading industries to build a scientific and technological innovation service system with deep integration of industry, education, and research. It is expected to introduce 1 billion yuan head enterprises, 100 million yuan science and technology enterprises, and several million yuan ecological chain enterprises, with a total output value of 5 billion yuan. Once completed, it will become a "world-class digital lake", It is expected to provide more powerful support for Guangzhou's digital transformation, which will also leave a strong mark in the history of Lihe's scientific innovation.

 

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