Tech Startups See Venture Capital Opportunities in China

March 26, 2009

Entrepreneurs who’ve set up shop in China see plenty of potential for growth and say the current economic slowdown has actually helped the situation by reducing costs and weeding out weaker competitors.

In a PC World article, William Bao Bean, a partner at venture capital firm Softbank China & India Holdings, sees “a time of huge opportunity” in China. Bean is also a director at the language-learning startup iTalki, which enables users in 200 countries to take language lessons and exchange lessons with other users, in more than 100 languages.

“The good thing about this market is that it is a really bad economy and people are looking for ways to work. We’ve had 1,100 teachers sign up on our platform in the first month,” Bean is quoted as saying. China gives iTalki a significant cost advantage over rivals in other countries. “We have a very low cost base to begin with and then we’ve managed to further lower it. We think we’re one-tenth to one-twentieth their running costs,” he said.

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