A new blockchain and fintech incubator has just opened for business in the Guangdong Financial Hi-tech Zone.
The “Blockchain +” Fintech Industry Incubation Centre (“区块链+”金融科技产业孵化中心) officially commenced operation on 20 December in the Guangdong Financial Hi-tech Zone, with the goal of “providing incubation office space, policy guidance, project resource matching, project finance and investment fintech enterprises and entrepreneurship groups.”
The incubation centre is situated in the “Blockchain +” Fintech Industrial Cluster Base of the Guangdong Financial Hi-tech Zone, and was jointly established by the zone’s authorities and Yihive (蚁米控股), which bills itself as the founder of an “education-innovation-incubation-investment” integration model.
The Blockchain + Fintech Industrial Cluster Base has a total area of around 120,000 square metres, while 28 enterprises have already signed up for spots within the incubation centre.
The Guangdong Financial Hi-tech Zone is located in Foshan municipality, to the north of Shenzhen and the west of the provincial capital of Guangzhou.
A senior official from the zone said that it was actively exploring blockchain technology as an entry point for the development of the fintech sector, and would use the incubation centre to rear a raft of “Blockchain+” fintech enterprises and innovation teams.
In future the Guangdong Financial Hi-tech Zone plans to “strengthen blockchain theoretical research and breakthrough innovations in base-level technology, with a focus on the primary needs and challenges of finance and real industry.
The Zone will also encourage the trial application of the blockchain and other technologies to finance, manufacturing and trade projects, to drive the effective integration of the blockchain and other technologies with application scenarios.
Yihive chair Zhang Jinxi (张锦喜) said that the company had established a 200 million yuan private equity fund to focus on “Blockchain+” fintech investments, and that it would use the incubation centre to deploy the company’s four-facet model of “education – innovation – incubation – investment.”
