Chinese startup for startups raises $2.4M angel round

China’s startup market has exploded over the past couple of years, buoyed by the increase in available funding. There’s a startup (or five) for basically everything you can imagine, including – of course – startups for other startups. The latest example is Joychuang, a startup services platform and app, which has just raised a seed round of RMB 15 million (US$2.4 million) from Pangu Venture Capital.

Joychuang is a Software-as-a-Service company aimed directly at other startups and their founders. Through its mobile app and offline events (it does have two locations in startup hubs of Beijing and Shanghai) it aims to help founders raise money, recruit talent, find office space, host events, and much more. It advertises itself as a one-stop shop for startup services, and its offerings also include accounting services and help legally registering your company. It is (at least in theory) a bit like an online incubator.

Joychuang promises quite a lot; whether it can deliver is another story. Founder Wu Minghua has a history of doing startups focused on other startups that includes three other companies and dates back to 2003, so he certainly has experience on his side. But it’s clear the company is still in the very early stages. Its website looks pretty unprofessional, and the app download link on it doesn’t seem to work (it also inexplicably features a huge picture of a gorgeous seaside village in Greece on its “Contact Us” page).

The app itself isn’t much better. I get the impression the company intends to offer many services itself in the long run, but right now Joychuang’s app just forwards you to other providers. If you’re looking for help with accounting, for example, it has a list of several third-party companies that do startup accounting, but there’s no way to actually do anything beyond contact them from within the app. So much for one-stop services.

Still, Joychuang is young, and the US$2.4 million seed round it just raised should help quite a bit. Can this startup-for-startups achieve its promise as a true one-stop SaaS company, or is it doomed to become a listings site that points founders towards third-party providers?