In September 2014, Cho-Nan Tsai, a software engineering manager in Pasadena, California, got a phone call that felt like the beckoning of history. A fellow alumnus from Columbia University had an idea for a startup that could disrupt China’s wild digital marketing scene. Did Tsai want in?
“He told me there are a lot of these [venture capital firms] popping up in Beijing, and companies were getting funded very easily,” Tsai recalls.
Kai-fu Lee at Disrupt Beijing 2011. Credit: TechCrunch
Indeed, at the time, China’s internet scene was booming, and venture capitalists were scouring Beijing for the next Jack Ma. Innovation Works, a Beijing-based incubator founded by ex-Google executive Kai-fu Lee, had just raised $275 million to fund new internet projects. Another fund, 36Kr, had bagged a Series D from Ma’s Ant Group and was focused on the capital’s startups. Tsai, then in his early 30s, felt this was his chance.
“Back then, Beijing was the talk of the town,” he
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