China's pride: Silicon Valley "Tsinghua Bang"

Tsinghua’s alumni in the San Francisco Bay Area now exceed 10,000. The changing Chinese economy is undoubtedly a sweet cake for those students who have gone out of China's higher education institutions. With common labels, they live and work in Silicon Valley, the most innovative place in the world, to fulfill their ideals of life and to incite great commercial interests.

Jiang Xuan

[At present, TAF has invested a total of 15 million US dollars, invested in 120 projects, 6 exits, and 7 companies have a valuation of more than 100 million US dollars. Among them, mobile security company TrustGo was acquired by Baidu in 2013, and the purchase price exceeded 30 million US dollars]

[Silicon Valley Alumni Association and other organizations jointly launched the "Tsinghua Pilot Mentor Training Program" in November 2015. The first 26 tutors all graduated from cross-strait Tsinghua University]

Zhang Yuqing, who lives and works in Silicon Valley, is a frequent contact person when many domestic counterparts go to Silicon Valley for "pilgrimages." More than 20 years ago, Zhang Yuqing, a graduate of the 1980-level Tsinghua Electronic Engineering Department, came to Silicon Valley and began his "silicon drift" career.

Like many investors, before the change of status, Zhang Yuqing also lived a life of looking for money with his business plan. "At that time, starting a business in Silicon Valley, seeing investors seems to be a very grand matter. It takes a few weeks in advance to meet, and it is not enough to meet."

Struggling in a foreign land is difficult, but fortunately there is organization later. In April 2005, some Tsinghua alumni entrepreneurs from high-tech fields at home and abroad established the Tsinghua Entrepreneurs Association (hereinafter referred to as "TEEC") in Beijing, and later radiated to the gathering place of Tsinghua alumni such as the United States, the United States, and Japan.

Five years later, Zhang Yuqing, the founding partner of TEECAngelFund (hereinafter referred to as "TAF") was established in Silicon Valley, and TAF was founded on TEEC. One of the LPs of this angel investment institution is the Tsinghua Holdings Fund, and several founding members are all Tsinghua graduates.

Liang Hongjie, the current president of the Silicon Valley Tsinghua Alumni Association, told the "First Financial Daily" reporter that conservatively estimated that Tsinghua’s alumni in the San Francisco Bay Area now exceed 10,000.

Most of the Tsinghua graduates in Silicon Valley have outstanding skills and have an advantage in starting a business. With the rapid growth of the Chinese market, the Chinese entrepreneurial linkage between China and the United States will enter the commercial real period. Tsinghua graduates in Silicon Valley are building a network of alumni resources across the United Nations across the United States and in all areas of entrepreneurship.

Venture capital in Silicon Valley

Five years after the establishment of TEEC, several members in Silicon Valley launched this angel investment fund called TAF based on TEEC. In the latest third phase of the fund, members of the TEEC Association contributed more than 50%.

Members of the TAF investment team also work for well-known Internet companies, such as Wang Jinlin, COO and CTO of Answers.com, Liu Youzhong, Google Engineering Director, Shao Xuhui, Vice President of Yahoo Engineering, and Ge Hong, Facebook Technical Director. All of these people are Tsinghua alumni.

The first two funds of TAF invested in 25 and 87 companies respectively. The third phase of the fund raised a total of 30 million US dollars, began to invest on April 1 last year, as of the end of last year, the third phase of the fund has invested a total of 5 million US dollars.

At present, TAF has invested a total of 15 million US dollars, invested in 120 projects, 6 exits, and 7 companies have a valuation of more than 100 million US dollars. Among them, mobile security company TrustGo was acquired by Baidu in 2013, and the purchase price exceeded 30 million US dollars. TrustGo was founded by Li Xuyang, a Chinese engineer in Silicon Valley. Aurora Ventures (founder Deng Feng is also a Tsinghua alumnus) also participated in the early incubation of the project.

In addition, TAF exit cases include: tablet device advertiser TapEngage was acquired by Dropbox in 2012, network security technology company PrivateCore and gesture recognition startup NimbleVR was acquired by Facebook in 2014, early education application LaunchpadToys was acquired by Google in 2015, and so on.

Similar to the fierce situation of the domestic angel investment industry in recent years, in Silicon Valley, the number of angel funds is also increasing, and the increasingly fierce angel investment industry, if there is no new gameplay, the consequence is that the big fish will eat small fish. .

More and more Silicon Valley Angel Funds have begun to take the "people-friendly" route, and have taken the initiative to go to entrepreneurs, including the establishment of "spy" networks across Silicon Valley's major technology giants, and the first time to recruit entrepreneurs and discover entrepreneurship. Projects; partnerships with other venture funds, incubators and universities to share resources and information and collaborate on quality projects.

In August 2015, when the investor Li Feng announced that he would break the traditional management fee collection and income distribution method in his newly established fund, TAF is also trying similar changes in the Silicon Valley across the ocean.

TAF's entire fund team consists of four major echelons of core investors, fund partners, mentors, and value-add partners. At the same time, reforms are also carried out in the distribution of income, and the amount of income is entirely determined by the contribution rate of individuals. For each investment transaction reached, each person's contribution rate has a clear quantitative record, subdivided into each link. For example, who introduced this entrepreneurial project, who did the due diligence and so on. Zhang Yuqing believes that this is an important step for the new fund to break the pattern.

In addition to TAF, Silicon Valley Fengyuan Venture Capital, Silicon Valley Angel Fund (SVCAngle) and so on are the emerging "Tsinghua people" venture capital institutions in Silicon Valley in recent years. Tsinghua 1984 microelectronics alumnus Kong Dehai is the founding partner of SVCAngle. The angel organization established in 2015, the investment direction is mainly the smart manufacturing and future industrial technology revolution.

"The project we are investing in is expected to be closer to the ongoing industrial changes in the country." Kong Dehai told reporters. Up to now, SVCAngle has invested in three projects: big data analysis, traditional industry intelligence projects, and storage security related projects. Now, they are also helping the project find the next round of investment in the country.

Tsinghua alumni's angel circle

In China, the figure of Tsinghua alumni is more active in the entrepreneurial venture circle. On January 16th, Tsinghua Economics Entrepreneur Accelerator held a project exchange event in Beijing, attracting more than 50 investment institutions. In the entrepreneurial circle, when you mention that you are a Tsinghua alumni, you will always be particularly favored by investors, especially Tsinghua investors.

This is a strong sense of identity. Among the members of TEEC, there is a long list of investors, including Shen Zhengning, Chairman of Zijing Capital, Zhou Wei, Partner of Sequoia China, Zhang Zhen, Founding Partner of Gaochun Capital, Yang Dong, Partner of Saifu Investment, and Qingtian Capital Management Partner Lin Biao, Silicon Valley Fengyuan Venture Partners Li Qiang, Gao Wei Capital Partner Hong Wei, Aurora Venture Capital Founder Deng Feng and so on. These high-school seniors have provided a natural capital advantage for Tsinghua alumni who later took the road to entrepreneurship.

Zhang Yuqing once said that TAF and Tsinghua have close interactions, and Tsinghua Holdings’ parent fund has funded it. TAF provides resources and financial support for entrepreneurial alumni and returns some profits to the school.

TEEC now has nearly 400 members. According to official data, the membership types are mainly entrepreneurs, and some of the leading domestic and foreign industry leaders or senior domestic and international organizations.

Compared with the huge Tsinghua Alumni Association, TEEC is trying to build a concentrated alumni business network. The founder of the Northern Lights, Deng Feng, who is often the platform for all kinds of entrepreneurial activities in Tsinghua, should be the one in the network center.

Deng Feng, a graduate of the 1981 Tsinghua Radio Department, was the first chairman of TEEC. In the 1990s, he became a member of the army of studying abroad and went to the United States to study and work. In 2005, the US venture capital industry that experienced the Internet bubble crisis recovered and became interested in the Chinese market. At that time, Deng Feng, who had experience in entrepreneurship and investment, quickly returned to China to establish the Northern Light Venture Capital.

In today's Arctic Light investment list, there are many entrepreneurs who graduated from Tsinghua University. For example, Wang Xing of the US Mission, Tian Fanjiang of Lily Net, Tong Zhilei of Chinese Online, Wang Xiaodong of Fast Teeth, etc. In fact, the Northern Lights often work with other Tsinghua investors to jointly invest in projects.

In 2001, Deng Feng, who was still in Silicon Valley, recognized the importance of identity. In conjunction with several alumni who started business in high-tech, TEG (TsinghuaEntrepreneurGroup) was established, which was the predecessor of TEEC, which was growing stronger. At the same time, he also founded the Huayuan Science and Technology Association in the United States to help entrepreneurs in the United States and China.

a big net

Liang Hongjie told reporters that conservatively estimated that Tsinghua’s alumni in the San Francisco Bay Area now exceed 10,000. In addition, nearly 100 students from Tsinghua go to several schools in Northern California each year, and there are many alumni who have transferred to Silicon Valley from other states in the United States.

The Silicon Valley Tsinghua Alumni Association was established in 1994 and is the Tsinghua Alumni Association with the largest number of alumni. Now, despite the need to balance the daily liaison work of more than 10,000 alumni, Liang Hongjie and her team are all volunteers. Usually, they regularly organize alumni gatherings to help alumni to connect with each other. "Let everyone remember the feeling of going to college." In addition, the Alumni Association will also form a team to participate in various sports activities.

Although it will not involve too much commercial work, the alumni association will actively participate in the entrepreneurship and career development of Tsinghua alumni.

Liang Hongjie introduced that the Silicon Valley Alumni Association and other organizations jointly launched the "Tsinghua Pilot Mentor Training Program" in November 2015. It is planned to be a half-year project to build a bridge between Tsinghua predecessors and young alumni to help young alumni in Silicon Valley. Career and entrepreneurship.

The 26 instructors of the first phase of the pilot program graduated from Tsinghua. At the same time, these instructors have a very rich entrepreneurial or well-known Internet company experience.

Zhang Yuqing told reporters that most of the Tsinghua graduates in Silicon Valley have excellent technology and have an advantage in starting a business. With the rapid growth of the Chinese market, the Chinese entrepreneurial linkage between China and the United States will enter the commercial real period. At the same time, the development of China's innovative financial market has also brought new exit opportunities to companies in the United States.

Since the 1990s, Chinese angel investor Lin Fuyuan started the Silicon Valley Acorn Park venture in Silicon Valley, and Chinese organizations have become increasingly active in Silicon Valley. Zhang Yuqing said that in the past three years, a large number of Chinese capital began to enter Silicon Valley. At the same time, the Chinese entrepreneurial team has more channels than before to obtain funds. But unfortunately, the Chinese entrepreneurial team is still not as hot as the Indian entrepreneurial team.

"There are a lot of Chinese entrepreneurial teams here. The Chinese individual investment behavior has been active in recent years, but the influence is not very big. In the investment institutions, the Tsinghua Department and the Peking University have more institutional investment activities. The Tsinghua University itself has some first The advantage was that the ecosystem was established earlier," Kong Dehai said.

Lin Zhonghua, founding partner of Fengrui Capital, who is familiar with the US venture capital environment, told reporters that in recent years, a trend in Silicon Valley venture capital is that more and more good projects are willing to join the incubator, and some angel investments will also be built around the incubator.

In 2012, the InnoSpring incubator with the same Tsinghua background was established in Silicon Valley. Zhang Yuqing was also the founder. Half of the projects that InnoSpring hatched at the time were the Chinese entrepreneurial team in Silicon Valley. InnoSpring seed funding is attended by Tsinghua Science Park and Aurora Ventures. A startup that graduated from InnoSpring is likely to get a TAF investment.


Establishing associations, funds, and business incubators. In recent years, Tsinghua people in Silicon Valley like Zhang Yuqing are building a network of alumni resources across the United Nations and in various fields of entrepreneurship. Previously, it was pointed out that in Silicon Valley, the "Tsinghua Department" is becoming the third academic force after Stanford and Berkeley.

More than that, they are still pulling the connection between Silicon Valley and domestic alumni in various ways, trying to make this alumni network bigger.

On January 16th, local time, Kong Dehai just participated in the organization of the final of the 6th North American Entrepreneurship Competition. At the final meeting, Luo Quanlin, Consul General of China in San Francisco, Wang Chaoyong, Chairman of Xinzhongli Investment Group, and several local governments in China The delegation participated. This entrepreneurial competition based on Tsinghua alumni has been held for six consecutive sessions. In 2009, Kong Dehai also established a US-China high-level talent exchange association with other alumni to establish a long-term talent pool and project library.

"SVCAngle and the US-China High-Level Talent Exchange Association constitute an ecosystem that invests in the technology needed for China's new industrial revolution." Kong Dehai told reporters.

The changing Chinese economy is undoubtedly a sweet cake for those students who have gone out of China's top universities. With a common label, they live and work in Silicon Valley, the world's most innovative place, to fulfill their ideals of life and to incite great commercial interests.