On September 21, the WeStart 2025 Entrepreneurial Investment Conference was launched in Shanghai as a key part of the 18th Pujiang Innovation Forum.
Anchored by the theme "Innovate Forward & Build Together," it built a multi-tiered, international, and high-efficiency investment-financing matching platform via one conference, one competition and one exhibition -- aggregating global innovation resources to fuel high-quality growth for tech enterprises.
The Shanghai WeStart community targets cutting-edge tech entrepreneurs, offering an open talent service platform to meet needs for disruptive innovation investment, incubation, and development across Shanghai.
At the forum, domestic and international guests delved into capital empowerment logic throughout the sci-tech innovation chain. The "WeStart early-stage & small-scale investment alliance," initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology, was formally established. Co-founded by leading investment institutions, central enterprises, and ecosystem partners, this organization leverages the WeStart TOP 100 startup competition to link top capital and industrial resources, accelerating early-stage sci-tech achievement translation.
Over two days, these startup showcase and matching activities wove a full-chain innovation service system (covering tech transfer, achievement translation, and venture capital), providing a high-level platform for global innovation elements to converge and connect.
The WeStart TOP 100 startup competition drew 1,487 global teams from four frontier fields -- biomedicine, integrated circuits, AI, and future industries -- including 71 overseas projects. After the preliminary round, 100 high-quality projects advanced to roadshows, competing for the TOP 100 titles.
As a key hub for international exchange, Shanghai hosted the WeStart cross-border sci-tech project matchmaking session. Over 30 overseas tech projects from 9 countries -- the U.S., Canada, the UK, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, South Korea, Malaysia, and Pakistan -- held lively dialogues with local capital. These projects spanned AI+ enterprise services, digital healthcare, clean tech & sustainable energy, fintech, marketing & e-commerce, and edtech.
Source: The 18th Pujiang Innovation Forum