As an integral part of the 17th Pujiang Innovation Forum, WeStart2024 was held at Dongjiao State Guest Hotel and Zhangjiang Science Hall, Shanghai from September 7 to 10 . Under the theme of Refactoring Renewal, this years conference focused on sci-tech entrepreneurship and investment, aiming to create a global entrepreneurship investment platform that bridges projects with capital. This platform leverages capital to bolster sci-tech innovation and economic transformation. The four-day event boasted two main forums, one symposium, 13 roadshow marathons, and multiple industry sharing sessions. Renowned investment agencies like CICC, Zero2IPO, and Shenzhen Capital Group were invited to delve into the innovative investment landscape, exploring avenues for global collaboration, building a new paradigm of entrepreneurship investment, and stimulating new drivers to sci-tech innovation.
Lets review the highlights.
Shanghai has been fortifying its position as a global sci-tech innovation center by intensifying element concentration, enhancing functions and services, and cultivating a comprehensive sci-tech ecosystem. This has turned Shanghai into a heaven for entrepreneurship and a magnet for investment. WeStart2024 brought together government bodies, experts, scholars, venture firms at home and abroad, sci-tech businesses, and nearly 1,000 audience professionals to discuss entrepreneurship investment and create an ecosystem for sci-tech innovation together through diverse sci-tech innovation stakeholders, transforming this ecosystem from a strategic blueprint into reality.
On September 8 , WeStart2024 kicked off with main forums, featuring 13 keynote speeches and two roundtable dialogues. Key sci-tech finance terms such as patient capital, fundraising, investment, management and exit, investment in early-stage, small, long-term and hard technologies, angel investment, and high-quality development of the capital market were frequently mentioned, becoming the focal point of discussions and highlighting the future development of sci-tech finance. The roundtable dialogues unveiled the latest sci-tech investment opportunities and delved into trends, current statuses, and strategies of sci-tech entrepreneurship investment amidst new situations and transformative environments.
The exhibition hall housed a Start-ups Exhibition Zone, showcasing nearly 20 TOP100 roadshow projects and products and the investment ecosystems and achievements of three to five leading venture firms through the linkage of the Entrepreneur Joint Exhibition Zone, the Investment Institution Zone, and the One-to-One Negotiation Zone. There were boards briefing on typical sci-tech businesses in the fields of biomedicine and AI. Social scenes for entrepreneurship investment were also offered to facilitate direct communication between projects and investors.
