Sequoia Capital moves fundraising online as Chinese entrepreneurs and bankers remain grounded amid coronavirus
- Nearly 30 start-ups and more than 50 venture capital firms have signed up for Sequoia’s online financing and investment matchmaking events
- The world’s second largest economy had 63 million ‘self-employed businesses’ at the end of 2018
Chinese school students and white-collar workers are not the only ones trying to make the best of being confined to home for study and work amid the coronavirus outbreak – now some of the country’s most frequent travellers are doing the same when it comes to making deals.
Start-up entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are replacing face to face meetings with online ones as the novel coronavirus outbreak continues to spread, resulting in more than 1,100 deaths and 44,000 infections in China as of Wednesday.
Sequoia Capital, one of the country’s biggest names for tech investment, is set to move its matchmaking meetings between start-ups and investors online for the first time.
Nearly 30 start-ups and more than 50 venture capital firms have signed up for the online financing and investment matchmaking events, according to a post on Sequoia’s official WeChat account on Wednesday.
The first teleconference is expected to roll out next Tuesday via Zoom, on the theme of corporate services and technology, followed by an online event focusing on consumer and service sectors.
“The epidemic, causing inconvenience for travel and meetings, has brought challenges for investors and entrepreneurs to manage the pace of fundraising,” the venture capital firm said in its post, adding that the cloud-based meetings are designed to help “quality” companies secure funding without taking the risk of going out amid the health scare.