Richard (Rich) Turrin is the international best-selling author of “Cashless - China’s Digital Currency Revolution” and “Innovation Lab Excellence.” He is an Onalytica Top 100 Fintech Influencer and an award-winning executive previously heading fintech teams at IBM following a twenty-year career in investment banking. Living in Shanghai for the last decade, Rich experienced China going cashless first-hand. Hear about: What is the Chinese digital yuan, and why it is different...

Episode 84 of Tech Buzz China features co-host Rui Ma in conversation with Gary Liu, CEO of the South China Morning Post on the hottest five trends shaping the China internet industry in 2021: tightening regulations, bumpy roads for IPOs, overseas expansion plans, shifting demographics, and growing private domain traffic. SCMP is a leading news media company that has reported on China and Asia for more than a century with global impact.  Also, Tech Buzz China is growing! We have a Livecast...

Andy Tian is the founder of Asia innovations group, a company that has a suite of live social apps, e.g. Uplive, Lamour, SupreFans with more than 410 million registered users located in over 150 countries and regions worldwide. Andy has strong opinions about what's the best way to take the most interesting things he has seen in China and throughout Asia, and export them to the rest of the world. Hear about: How China's uniquely firewalled off environment created a different ecosystem, thus...

Richard is the co-founder of Grandview Capital, a VC fund focused on investing in Chinese entrepreneurs who do business outside of China (AKA go overseas or "chuhai" in Chinese). He's based in Silicon Valley and his co-founder is in China. Hear Richard explain: Why he started to look at Chinese entrepreneurs who are attacking overseas markets back in 2015; How the nature of the manufacturing & technology industry makes it easier for these companies to globalize; How he believes in...

Richard is the co-founder of Grandview Capital, a VC fund focused on investing in Chinese entrepreneurs who do business outside of China (AKA go overseas or "chuhai" in Chinese). He's based in Silicon Valley and his co-founder is in China. Hear Richard explain: Why he started to look at Chinese entrepreneurs who are attacking overseas markets back in 2015; How the nature of the manufacturing & technology industry makes it easier for these companies to globalize; How he believes in...

Ray Hu is the founder of Blue Lake Capital, an early stage VC fund in China with about $700mm under management. Blue Lake specializes in SaaS investments. Hear Ray explain: The current state of Chinese SaaS, enabling factors and requirements for success Case study: Jushuitan (JST), an ecommerce SaaS and their sales strategy Enterprises' willingness to pay and other differences in the Chinese market Internationalizing

Ray Hu is the founder of Blue Lake Capital, an early stage VC fund in China with about $700mm under management. Blue Lake specializes in SaaS investments. Hear Ray explain: The current state of Chinese SaaS, enabling factors and requirements for success Case study: Jushuitan (JST), an ecommerce SaaS and their sales strategy Enterprises' willingness to pay and other differences in the Chinese market Internationalizing

Albus Yu works for China Growth Capital, a venture capital fund that manages about 1.4 billion dollars. He specializes in consumer internet, consumer brands, and services investment. Hear Albus explain: The reason that he  had started to invest in consumer internet and e-commerce marketplaces; What the growth of DTC brands in China looks like these days; The differences that the DTC brands are growing between the US versus in China right now, and Why it is a better opportunity from both the...

Albus Yu works for China Growth Capital, a venture capital fund that manages about 1.4 billion dollars. He specializes in consumer internet, consumer brands, and services investment. Hear Albus explain: The reason that he  had started to invest in consumer internet and e-commerce marketplaces; What the growth of DTC brands in China looks like these days; The differences that the DTC brands are growing between the US versus in China right now, and Why it is a better opportunity from both the...

Recorded March 9, 2021. Ron Cao has spent 20 years as a venture capitalist in China. He first went there during the 90s when semiconductor investing was a thing, but then found himself investing in consumer internet startups such as ByteDance and Pinduoduo because that sector yielded the greatest return, and is now finding himself investing in semiconductors again. We talk about the impact of the pandemic, if deeptech investing is really taking off, investing in returnees, blockchain,...

Recorded March 9, 2021. Ron Cao has spent 20 years as a venture capitalist in China. He first went there during the 90s when semiconductor investing was a thing, but then found himself investing in consumer internet startups such as ByteDance and Pinduoduo because that sector yielded the greatest return, and is now finding himself investing in semiconductors again. We talk about the impact of the pandemic, if deeptech investing is really taking off, investing in returnees, blockchain,...

Recorded Thursday 2/10/21.Kevin, now at Github, is the founder of interconnected.blog, a bilingual newsletter on the intersections of tech, business, money, geopolitics, and US-Asia relations.We go over:What is Agora? It's a platform as a service company.The origin story of Tony Zhao the CEO who was previously at WebEx & then CTO at YY, where he achieved substantial success.Agora's technology & business model, which is developer facing and self service and usage basedWhat happens when...

Recorded Thursday 2/10/21.Kevin, now at Github, is the founder of interconnected.blog, a bilingual newsletter on the intersections of tech, business, money, geopolitics, and US-Asia relations.We go over:What is Agora? It's a platform as a service company.The origin story of Tony Zhao the CEO who was previously at WebEx & then CTO at YY, where he achieved substantial success.Agora's technology & business model, which is developer facing and self service and usage basedWhat happens when...

Jordan Berke spent fifteen years transforming the world's largest retailer into a truly digital organization by leading strategic alliances with JinDong and Tencent. He's now the founder of Tomorrow Retail, a consulting company. Hear about: How does Walmart China outstrip the US in four major categories? What are retailers in the U.S. focusing on right now? How do retailers turn their business into a platform? What are the differences in the China and U.S. business ecosystems? What myths...

Jordan Berke spent fifteen years transforming the world's largest retailer into a truly digital organization by leading strategic alliances with JinDong and Tencent. He's now the founder of Tomorrow Retail, a consulting company. Hear about: How does Walmart China outstrip the US in four major categories? What are retailers in the U.S. focusing on right now? How do retailers turn their business into a platform? What are the differences in the China and U.S. business ecosystems? What myths...

Early on in VC, Boyu Hu was at DCM China and worked on the Kuaishou deal. Now he has his own fund XVC, managing $600mm, focusing on consumer internet. I asked what's changed in the last ten years and: Why's he continuing to invest in consumer internet? Is rural China where it's at? Are the big platforms more important? Are the big funds more important? How's he adjusting his strategy? Our conversation was recorded Feb. 24, 2021 over Clubhouse app and Zoom.

Early on in VC, Boyu Hu was at DCM China and worked on the Kuaishou deal. Now he has his own fund XVC, managing $600mm, focusing on consumer internet. I asked what's changed in the last ten years and: Why's he continuing to invest in consumer internet? Is rural China where it's at? Are the big platforms more important? Are the big funds more important? How's he adjusting his strategy? Our conversation was recorded Feb. 24, 2021 over Clubhouse app and Zoom.

Recorded live Feb. 10, 2021. Q&A with Jack Yujie Yang who led the growth of Mobike, China's leading bikesharing company (acquired by Meituan for $2.7Bn in 2018) as VP of Growth & Product. He grew the company from 4 to over 200 cities, ~500k to over 30 million trips per day. He then joined MissFresh, one of China's grocery delivery unicorns ($3Bn+ valuation) as Chief Growth Officer. He is now working on his own e-commerce startup. We talk about: Growth in the US vs. China Specific...

Recorded live Feb. 10, 2021. Q&A with Jack Yujie Yang who led the growth of Mobike, China's leading bikesharing company (acquired by Meituan for $2.7Bn in 2018) as VP of Growth & Product. He grew the company from 4 to over 200 cities, ~500k to over 30 million trips per day. He then joined MissFresh, one of China's grocery delivery unicorns ($3Bn+ valuation) as Chief Growth Officer. He is now working on his own e-commerce startup. We talk about: Growth in the US vs. China Specific...

Recorded live Jan. 23, 2021 Dan Grover is an experienced product manager who previously worked at WeChat in Guangzhou, China, and now works in Silicon Valley for an American internet giant. He writes on China tech and other trends. In this session, Rui and Dan have a wide ranging conversation on their thoughts about WeChat 8.0 and the Channels video function in particular. WeChat Update: 1.1Bn DAU, 30% use video chat, 11% post to Moments feed, 40% use mini programs and 200mm people already...

Recorded Feb. 5, 2021. On this livecast, we chat with seasoned investor Ed Tsai on the business of cybersecurity in China. Here are the main points: Ed's self introduction of how he ended up in China and some background on his most recent employer, QiAnXin, the largest pureplay cybersecurity company in China, a $15Bn market cap company that is at about 5,000 employees. Overview of the sector & history of the regulations that have really accelerated the industry. Hint: now that you can...

One of Tech Buzz China’s partners is leading alternative data firm BigOne Lab, who is one of the best sources on detailed operational data for large Chinese tech companies. In Tech Buzz's quarterly update, BigOne's head of research, Robert Wu, joined Rui for a live webinar going over everything interesting among the big China ecommerce players, which are now Alibaba, JD, Meituan, Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Kuaishou.  We begin with the latest in community group buying, the group-buying next-day...