No growing pains for start-up incubator

36Kr, a pioneering Chinese startup service platform, is to expand its subordinate Kr Space, a start-up incubator, to 20 cities across the nation by the end of next year.

Kr Space, founded in April 2014, offers free financing, office space and other business services to start-ups. It has offices in Beijing, Suzhou and Nanjing.

Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Shanghai and Tianjin will be the first batch of cities to benefit, and will come into operation by the end of the year. The company aims to build the biggest start-up incubator.

Lin Dudi, co-founder of 36Kr and president of Kr Space said on Tuesday: “The operation mode at these incubators will be the same as that in Beijing, where startups will be provided with three-months of free services, such as no rent and no equity holding”.

He said the reason for choosing the cities was the abundant innovative businesses there. "We want to break the trend that most start-up incubators concentrate on Beijing and other first-tier cities, bring about leading experience accumulated in Beijing to more local entrepreneurs and improving the service standard of start-up incubators," Lin said.

By August 25, Kr Space had incubated 72 companies from more than 5,000 candidates, among which 70 start-ups have received financing, with 97 percent completing first round financing. Total financing is 600 million yuan.

In March, 36Kr Finance was launched. Top-tier venture capital syndicates have cooperated with 36kr Finance, including IDG Capital Partners, Matrix China and ZhenFund.