Li Zhu smiles during an interview with chinadaily.com.cn in Hangzhou, Sept 22, 2016. (Photo/chinadaily.com.cn)
Clad in a pink polo T-shirt and jeans, 50-something angel investor Li Zhu carefully proofreads the script of his speech with an employee at a press room during the 2016 DEMO China in Hangzhou last week.
Such attention to details is rarely seen in a boss who handles a billion yuan fund.
But for Li Zhu, the co-founder of the 1.6 billion yuan ($240 million) Innovation Angel Funds, it is common practice.
With an academic temperament, Li pays special attention to young entrepreneurs, even those born in the 1990s.
"We are always optimistic about the future of young businessmen. Judged from our past investment, we believe that those aged around 30 are highly likely to be successful in starting their own businesses," Li told chinadaily.com.cn in Hangzhou Thursday.
He added that young businessmen could be successful in two fields. First could be about meeting demands of people of their age. The second could be about technology innovation, or turning what they learned at universities into commercial products.
His fund now offers special plans for fresh university graduates or those with less than five years of experience after graduation.
Li graduated from the prestigious Tsinghua University, or China's Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in 1989 in Beijing. Upon graduation, Li chose to stay in the Chinese capital and has remained there ever since.
With more than 10 years of experience in angel investment, he is a staunch preacher of the concept of "starting in Beijing".
In his opinion, "Beijing is the only place in the world that has an entrepreneurship environment that could parallel that in the Silicon Valley in the US."
The reasoning is clear.
Beijing is home to China's top universities, big internet firms, and investment institutions. It accounts for about 50 percent of China's angel investment.
