HICOOL 2024: Beijing's premier startup showcase

Beijing held the HICOOL 2024 Global Entrepreneur Summit in its Shunyi district from Friday to Sunday, reinforcing the city's commitment to welcoming and supporting global entrepreneurs and innovation.

Established in 2020, HICOOL is a big event for startups that introduces and supports entrepreneurial talents through its competition and summit. Over the years, it has become a key platform for connecting innovators from around the world with the resources and networks they need to succeed.

"HICOOL has provided us with an opportunity to showcase our business, allowing more potential partners to see what we offer. Through HICOOL, we have connected with over ten investors and 20 partners," said Li Shizun, CEO of Johnsmith.ai, an AI livestreaming company based in Beijing.

This year, the summit attracted a record-breaking 7,406 startup projects and 9,700 entrepreneurs from 124 countries and regions, according to the organizer.

Notably, 4,683 projects came from abroad, representing 63 percent of the total, while 3,209 of the entrepreneurs were foreign talents, making up 33 percent of all participants.

"Here in Beijing, we have the best policy support and a robust research ecosystem, making it our top choice for innovation and entrepreneurship," said Chen Zhaopeng, founder of Agile Robots, a robotics company from Munich, Germany.

Two years ago, Chen's company participated in the HICOOL 2022 Global Entrepreneurship Competition and won an award. With the support of the Beijing municipal government, it established its China headquarters in Haidian district and set up a modern factory in Shunyi district. The company has since achieved annual sales exceeding 100 million yuan ($14 million), becoming one of the highest-valued unicorn companies in the global intelligent robotics field.

Over the past five years, HICOOL has attracted more than 24,000 startup projects and 32,000 entrepreneurs from 145 countries and regions worldwide.

The competition has nurtured 16 unicorn companies and 127 enterprises that use specialized and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products.

To date, winning projects from the competition have secured over 36 billion yuan in new financing, providing robust support for global innovation and entrepreneurship.

The three-day event also featured an awards ceremony, an innovation practice exhibition, forums and roundtable meetings, the inauguration of top-level alliances on innovation and entrepreneurship, and various themed HICOOL lounges, providing participants multiple platforms to explore collaboration opportunities.

Li Boyu contributed to this story.

(Video by Zhu Sidi)