Luuk Eliens, XNode Chief Commercial Officer; Clara Chen, XNode Innovation Lead
With the ever-changing business climate across the globe, companies now find it increasingly important to innovate and grow in order to remain relevant and gain a competitive advantage over their peers. XNode, a leading private accelerator from China, starts from entrepreneurs, connects the resources of large enterprises and synergises the power of investment institutions, academia, government agencies, and accelerators or incubators to build a diverse entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem progressively.
The China-Singapore Innovation Launchpad is one of the many acceleration programs organised by XNode to help participants gain in-depth market knowledge through workshops and meet leading partners and customers to find the product-market fit. More importantly, participants can tap into the XNode’s community and alumni network to receive ongoing support on knowledge, partnerships and financing.
In September last year, XNode leveraged e27’s ecosystem platform and network of startups to promote the Launchpad. The programme called for Singapore startups keen to enter China to submit their applications.
e27 recently had the chance to sit down with Luuk Eliens, XNode’s Chief Commercial Officer, and Clara Chen, XNode’s Innovation Lead, to get their thoughts on the importance of bridging global innovation, the potential for startups in Singapore and the ecosystem in China to mutually advance together as a whole, and how e27’s community and expertise have helped XNode to achieve their desired outcomes.
Also read: ‘Asia Pacific is rich in innovation’: Airbus Ventures Partner Lewis Pinault
How e27’s community supported XNode in its China-Singapore Innovation Launchpad and helped achieve its objective
On working with e27, Chen shared that “e27’s coverage about our Launchpad helped us reach far more people than we might realise; it is a nice complement to our own community-building efforts and collectively, the continued visibility keeps our brand in the innovation ecosystem’s eye and reinforces the message that we are here to support the Singapore ecosystem for the long haul.” Apart from capitalising on XNode’s existing community members, the Launchpad also tapped onto e27’s ecosystem of startups, investors and partners to attract relevant stakeholders to participate in the inaugural accelerator program in 2019.
Chen further added that the campaign with e27 “gave the XNode brand a personality and helped to tell our story to the right audience. After close to a year, our content is still being discovered by audiences new to the e27 community and continues to earn organic traffic.”
The importance of bridging global innovation and how accelerators like XNode are navigating the new business landscape in fulfilling their mission
Even amidst these times of crisis, XNode’s mission to build the world’s leading engine for innovation and to bridge China to the rest of the world remains the same.
Eliens pointed out, however, that there are definitely several firms including early-stage technology companies that are now more cautious in executing their global expansion plans. “In particular, a few companies with whom we already reached an agreement to help expand their business into China decided to hold back and wait for the right timing to do so,” he revealed.
Nonetheless, Eliens firmly believes that the marriage of business and innovation is a global necessity and startups and innovation ecosystems will naturally gravitate towards the geographies where opportunities are the most significant.
The XNode HQ in Shanghai
On future opportunities in the space of innovation in China and the rest of the world
There are growing trends both in China and in other parts of the world where we start to see governments stepping up to revive economic growth through innovation.
Eliens posits, “from that angle, we see a plethora of opportunities in areas such as Smart City, Smart Manufacturing, and Sustainable Development Trends including climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.”
“But this will depend on the ability of companies to take advantage of the new industrial revolution and to overcome growing economic nationalism, as sustainable development depends on a global policy climate that remains conducive to cross-border investment.”
Key advice for founders who are planning to internationalise their business into markets like China
“I certainly believe there is great potential for startups in Singapore and the ecosystem in China to mutually advance in the long-term”, Eliens begins.
China remains as one of the largest growth engines globally during the pandemic and the country is extremely hungry to spur innovation by fostering collaborations externally. In this regard, since startups from Singapore are global natives and easily adapt and localise from the get-go, they are perfectly positioned to play an important role.
In order to become successful in a vast ultra-competitive market like China, Eliens advises startups and companies not to underestimate the amount of localisation that is required across all angles including product, business model and communication style. He also advises startups to have a long-term vision and mission and be willing to invest in their business expansion for an extended period before they can even draw any meaningful conclusions from their expansion strategies.
For Eliens, some of the critical characteristics of these companies include “having a very differentiated value proposition, some experience in the China market and the humility and willingness to listen and change”. With that, founders would have a better chance of flourishing in this competitive market.
Carrying such a positive outlook on their bold initiative in the region, XNode has tapped the right partners to complement their objectives. “The campaign with e27,” Chen shares, “was the catalyst to our community-building efforts in Singapore. It connected XNode with hundreds of startups and scale-ups, and was the bridge to future partners and talents within the ecosystem.”
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XNode recently worked with e27 for a campaign to tap into e27’s network of startups and reach out to a wider targeted audience. We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.
Apart from the above, e27 also has the expertise on co-organising accelerator programs. Some of our recent notable projects include the Facebook Community Accelerator Program, Vision Program with Science & Technology Policy Research and Information Center (STPI) and Smart Zholy Program with the Kazakhstan Government. Find out more by contacting our open innovation team at dustin@e27.co or bocheng@e27.co and let us help you to achieve your desired goals.
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