Shanghai's first "corporate service lab" has opened in a number of downtown districts to offer legal, financial and other support to local startup companies.
The service project, named "wehome LINK", was initially established in two major Dobe innovative parks in Changning and Jing'an districts as the first batch of "service labs" to serve hundreds of locally based startup firms in a trial operation.
Under the scheme, service providers such as law firms, human resource management companies, insurance providers and incubators will offer services to the small and medium-size enterprises for three months. The parks' operator will evaluate their performances and decide whether to retain or substitute them with better service providers.
This scheme will support a large swathe of startup companies under the government's mass entrepreneurship campaign, especially during the bottleneck period that most local innovative firms are undergoing.
"We found many young entrepreneurs, though they do have achievements in their fields, can hardly figure out many problems during the management and operation of their startup companies, such as share allocation, legal disputes and financial issues," said Jia Bo, chairman of Dobe Group, a major developer of local innovative parks.
"Some small and medium size companies don't even know how to apply for government subsidies that they are entitled to, and lost the opportunity to further develop," Jia said.
The first batch of seven service providers has entered the two innovative parks and begun serving startups on these issues. They include the Watson & Band law firm, online insurance company Qibao 360 and other service suppliers in print, office decoration, air purification and housekeeping.
Currently, most of the startup companies receive basic administrative services from incubators who merely help the entrepreneurs register their companies, pay taxes and apply for patents.
Most of the incubators neglected other more essential demands from startup companies, which hampered their development, according to mobile-Internet consultancy iiMedia Research.
