• $11M in cash prizes plus $140M investment for 100 successful startups
• Baidu, IDG, Xiaomi, Alibaba, and Sequoia participate in launch
• Competition ends in September with ‘carnival’ summit

BEIJING--(BUSINESS WIRE)--$BABA--One of the world’s biggest and most prestigious competitions for tech entrepreneurs opens for entrants today. The HICOOL Global Entrepreneurship Competition was launched on Friday in Beijing by some of the world’s leading tech entrepreneurs, companies, and investors.

Running for four months, the competition is open to any individual entrepreneur or team of entrepreneurs from around the world with new or early-stage start-up business ideas in AI, bio-health, and next-generation information technology such as 5G. 100 entrants will be chosen to share in RMB 80 million (USD $11M) of cash prizes, and RMB 1 billion (USD $140M) in VC investment funds.

The competition is organised by HICOOL and receives support from powerful innovators such as: leading tech firms Alibaba Group, ByteDance, Baidu, Xiaomi, and Microsoft; Peking University; and investors Northern Light, Sequoia, and IDG Capital Partners, among others.

Speaking at the launch, Robin Li, founder, chairman of the board, and CEO of Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) said, “HICOOL is a perfect platform for entrepreneurs to talk about dreams, to chase after dreams, and to realise dreams.”

Yong Zhang, chairman of the board and CEO of Alibaba (NYSE:BABA); Neil Shen, Global executive partner of Sequoia Capital; and Lei Zhang, founder and CEO of Hillhouse Capital, encouraged entrepreneurs to be confident, persistent, and hardworking.

Jun Lei, founder, chairman of the board, and CEO of Xiaomi Corporation (HKG:1810); Qi Lu, founder and CEO of MiraclePlus; and Hugo Shong, founder and chairman of the board of IDG Capital, also participated in the launch.

The HICOOL Global Entrepreneur Competition ends in September 2020 at the HICOOL Global Entrepreneur Summit in Beijing, where the semi-finals and finals will be held in a spectacular ‘carnival’ summit with music and entertainment, giving investors and entrepreneurs the chance to cultivate business and social relationships.

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HICOOL can be found and entrants may apply at www.hicool.com.

Contacts

Mark Adams, PR counsel to HICOOL

[email protected]
+44 7801491610 (UK timezone)