Startup that helps Chinese firms invest in SEA scores funding

(L-R) East Ventures co-founder Willson Cuaca, 7.5 Degree co-founders Yufu Li, and Xibang Lin / Photo credit: Yufu Li

At 18 years old, Yufu Li traveled from China to Singapore to further his education. He took up aerospace engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), but he was always interested in something else.

“I wanted to do startups right before I came to university,” he says. So in his first academic year, he started taking entrepreneurship courses.

By the time he graduated in 2017, Li already had a business idea. He knew that many Chinese investors were interested in Southeast Asia. And because he grew up in China and was educated in Singapore, he had the Chinese mindset and was familiar with how to do business in the city-state.

He reached out to Xibang Lin, his longtime classmate at NTU and fellow China native, to be his co-founder.

Using the cash they had at the time, the duo founded 7.5 Degree, a media and services platform that publishes Southeast Asian startup news for Chinese readers and helps the region’s startups connect with investors in China.

The startup journey

7.5 Degree has three main services. The first is its WeChat news portal (WeChat ID: Asia7_5), where startup news out of Southeast Asia is translated into Chinese. The portal also features original interviews with regional entrepreneurs.

The firm also runs events, says Li. It holds roundtable discussions in Singapore, Thailand, Bangkok, and Beijing, and arranges what Li calls “business trips,” where Chinese investors are brought to Southeast Asian countries to meet with local founders.

In December 2018, 7.5 Degree also launched a service called Invmall, a platform that promotes interaction between Southeast Asian companies and Chinese investors. It provides “linkup” services by facilitating introductions over email and WhatsApp, as well as acceleration services like drafting business plans and setting up meetings.

While the business model means it competes with other tech media platforms, Li maintains: “We don’t say we compete with each other. Actually, we’re helping each other to make the market hot and popular, no matter if it’s Southeast Asia or China.”

But he also noted one major difference: while other tech media is aimed at English readers, 7.5 Degree is for Chinese readers. It is also running events that are more niche compared to typical startup conferences.

When it comes to monetization, 7.5 Degree’s main source of income is its business trips, which earn a few thousand dollars per head, depending on the duration and country. Invmall, on the other hand, charges either an upfront fee or a certain percentage of the total investment startups get from fundraising.

While Li has high hopes for 7.5 Degree, the company is still in its nascent stages. It has published just 350 articles on its media platform and held five business trips since the service began in 2018. Invmall, which kicked off this year, is currently working with four startups.

But investors have certainly taken notice – 7.5 Degree just landed an investment from East Ventures. Willson Cuaca, the Indonesian venture capital firm’s co-founder, says one of the reasons it invested is because it hasn’t “seen a dedicated Southeast Asia-China news site like 7.5 Degree before.” What finally made up his mind, he adds, was the story behind the startup’s name and what it stood for.

Early challenges and future opportunities