VC firms feel the chill of sluggish market, but remain warm about future

Potential fields - Internet, sharing economy

For the first half of this year, angel funds invested heavily in TMT and Internet Plus in China, according to a report by Beijing-based Zero2IPO Research Center.

Xu Xiaoping, one of China's foremost angel investors and founder of ZhenFund, delivers a speech in Hangzhou, Sept 22, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Xu Xiaoping, one of China's foremost angel investors and founder of ZhenFund, cited opportunities in three fields, the sharing economy, the personal media (such as Papi Jiang), as well as frontier technologies.

"In the bike-sharing service, China has led the world," Xu said, adding that in the US campuses or on streets, bicycles for sharing are required to be parked at fixed places, while China's ofo bicycle allows users to park rent bicycles anywhere.

For Yan, despite the economic slowdown, there are still many opportunities in focused fields in the internet industry, such as China's answer to Craigslist 58.com, live streaming site inke.tv and Ruhan E-commerce Ltd, one of the biggest incubators of cyber celebrities.

Yan has also set sights on Internet Plus industry, which he said would have a market as big as 20 trillion yuan, as opposed to the 2 trillion yuan market for pure internet companies.

"For instance, Didi Chuxing, China's largest ride-hailing platform, might become the next unicorn that would compete against the internet giants such as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (the BATs)."

He pointed out that rich opportunities lie in how to use the internet to fundamentally change the traditional industries. "This is what start-up entrepreneurs should consider."

Deng agreed by identifying Internet Plus as one of the three engines that are driving the growth of China's economy, hence also providing opportunities for starting new businesses.