Alibaba’s Aliyun announces massive new support program for startups

Alibaba cloud subsidiary Aliyun announced Monday that more help is on the way for Chinese startups thanks to its new “Founder+” program. The program was created by Aliyun together with 30 venture capital firms including Zhenfund, IDG, and Innovation Works, as well as 20 research institutes and incubators and 20 marketing, distribution, and development firms. The collective effort will offer founders funding, office space (including office management resources and hardware), links with and guidance from investors, tax breaks, development units, and soft distribution and marketing services.

Free office space will reportedly be available in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Wuhan for accepted startups. Aliyun will also give each founder between RMB 30,000 and RMB 400,000 (US$4,800-$64,000) in cloud-based resources, as well as free cloud training. Anyone working on an innovative startup will be eligible to apply for the program.

Aliyun operations manager Wang Ming told reporters that cloud computing is changing the way startups are founded, so with “Founder+” Aliyun wants to make founding a startup more convenient. He also said that the company hopes to add more partners to the program so that it can offer services even more of China’s startup hotspots.

(Source: Sina Tech)