“HUST Men” Attracted Venture Capital Of More Than $ 600 Million

Founder of PPLIVE: Yao Xin

Founder of Dolphine Brower:Yang Yongzhi

Founder of Juanpi.com:Huang Chengsong

Founder of INMOTION Technologies, Co, Ltd.

On April 13th, ChangJiang Daily and Enterprising Pioneer reported the legend of HUSTers’ innovation and entreprenurship. In the past three years, there has emerged a typical “HUST Man” Phenomena in entrepreneurship.

According to the rough statistics, the number of enterprises founded by HUST graduates has exceeded 100. Not long ago, in the 30 Under 30 published in Forbeschina, 3 are HUST graduates, making HUST rank the first in all universities in China in terms of its share of 10%.

Now, various kinds of newly emerging things related to entrepreneurship such as crowd funding, venture capital, incubator, venture coffee, Golden Ten Suggestions, Qing tonghui have sprung out in Wuhan. Every day, there are on average a hundred new enterprises established in Wuhan. A group of enterprising pioneers with technologies, courage, ablilities and foresight reaped new experience and wealth in the market tide and displayed their great passion for entrepreneurship.

In social networks and media, the “HUST Men” who cut a striking figure have drawn wide attention. China Youth Daily once reported a lot about their enterprising activities. Other financial articles about their entrepreneurship have also been widely circulated in various kinds of venture capital sites, Weibo, and Wechat friend circle.

Found companies with high level of science & technology

In 1999, a junior in Department of Journalism founded a door lock company, making herself the first collegiate entrepreneur of that time known as the predecessor of China’s collegiate entrepreneurship.

In March this year, in the ranking list of 2014-Chinese City & University innovation and entrepreneurship published by Tecent, HUST placed the 7th in terms of total number of entrepreneurs while it ranked the first in terms of returns, overtaking Tsinghua University and Peking university with an absolute advantage.

HUST Professor Liu Yu introduced that HUST has always been a key base for entrepreneurship in Wuhan especially in areas like IT where there emerged many entrepreneurs including Yao Xin, Founder of PPTV , Yang Yongzhi, founder of Dolphin Browser, Zhang Xiaolong , founder of Wechat, XuZipei, Alibaba’s vice president and Li Yilan, the former vice president of Huawei, all of whom graduated from HUST.

In Shenzhen and Hangzhou, there are also profile of male HUST entrepreneurs such as Wang Haibing, founder of 61.com and Zhou Wei, founder of INMOTION Technologies Co. Ltd.

In recent two years, there have emerged more than 100 start-ups with a high level of science and technology founded by HUSTers, many of which were favored by venture capital companies with a financing amount reaching $100 million. Last year, Dolphin Browser founded by Yang Yongzhi gained the strategic investment of $120 million.

According to the rough statistics, since 2013, HUST men’s entrepreneurship projects have attracted a venture capital of over $ 600 million.

Many of them are curve wreckers or technical men

HUST Men’s enterprising areas mainly focus on mobile Internet, hardware, online education, medical care, finance etc, whose common features are high technical threshold, light business mode and wide user coverage.

The reporters noticed that many of these HUST Men are curve wreckers or technical men. Technology is their core competitiveness and their starting point of entrepreneurship.

In 2004 when Yao Xin was still a postgraduate, in order to watch the World Cup in his computer, he locked himself in the dormitory and wrote the first program of his life- PPLIVE.

When they were still college studenst, Yang Yongzhi and Liu Tiefeng, founder of Dolphin Browser were reputed as Microsoft’s most valuable experts in the globe. They once paid a visit to Bill Gates’ home. In 2011, feeling that the Android’s original browser is not so convenient to use, they then decided to develop a new one by themselves.

When still a junior, Zhou Wei, the founder of INMOTION Technologies Co. Ltd won the first prize in the National Robot Competition and formed a development team with the five friends he made in the competition.

Besides technology, ambition is also an integral quality contributing to HUST Men’s successes

It’s said that many HUST Men experienced many entrepreneurships and they never lost heart even if they failed for many times. Some of them gave up the high salary offered by big companies and started from scratch. For example, Yang Yongzhi once worked in Microsoft with an enviable salary. However, after he returned to Wuhan for entrepreneurship, he stayed at his rented room for a long time and could even not pay the salary when he was having a difficult time.

Many chose to incubate in Wuhan

Liu Yu thinks that besides scientific and educational plus as well as the individual quality of students, the HUST Men Phenomenon in entrepreneurship benefits a lot from the thick enterprising culture in the campus.

HUST also set up venture fund and will build “entrepreneurship building” to offer various kinds of entrepreneurship education and service to students.

Data showed that by 2014 nearly 70% of HUST graduates have the experience of participating in the innovation and entrepreneurship project when they were studying in the campus.

There are also many active entrepreneurship associations in the campus such as Bing Yan studio, Dian Group, Unique Studio. In the past ten years the number of companies founded or co-founded by the member of Dian Group reached 27.

This year, the city’s entrepreneurship environment had a live education for new “HUST Men”.

When Yao Xin wrote the PPLIVE program, he had no idea what venture capital is and needed to go to Shanghai to meet the investor. But now, this male HUSTer has a relatively complete knowledge storage of entrepreneurship with “option” and “valuation” frequent appearing in his words.

The emergence and activity of venture capital have also provided a better environment for entrepreneurship.

Many investors told the reporter that now if they want to invest a good project, they need to act quickly. In Qingtonghui, it’s common for a project to get the probable investment of ten investors. Decent Investment, founded by Zeng Liqing , one of the founder of Tencent even set their office in the building where Dian Group is located so as to grasp the “geographical advantage.

More and more HUST Men got investment in Wuhan and chose to incubate there. For example, the company of FuXiaolong, the founder of love note drew the attention of venture capital companies in Qingtonghui. Its office and group is both in Wuhan.

“From the national to the regional level, entrepreneurship is encouraged. In the future, more enterprising pioneers will certainly emerge in Wuhan where the environment for entrepreneurship is improving. ”said Yang Yongzhi.