Shenzhen News Network, September 15, 2025 In the 2025 Global Innovation Index’s list of the world’s top 100 innovation clusters, the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou innovation cluster has become the world’s largest innovation cluster for the first time. Shenzhen’s total R&D investment reached 223.66 billion yuan, an increase of 18.9%, marking the ninth consecutive year of double-digit growth. The R&D investment intensity reached 6.46%. The number of PCT international patent applications has ranked first in the country for 21 consecutive years, and domestic patent grants have ranked first for 7 consecutive years…
Technological innovation has placed Shenzhen in the global first tier. This achievement is inseparable from the continuous nourishment of financial “lifelines.”
From “providing timely help” in the startup phase, to “adding fuel to the fire” during the growth stage, and to “breaking barriers and exploring new paths” in innovation, Shenzhen’s tech finance has given wings to enterprises. This not only solves the core problem of “where the money comes from” for tech companies but also, through continuous innovation, directs financial resources precisely to hard tech and high-growth fields, helping Shenzhen accelerate the building of an industrial technology innovation center with global influence and construct an innovation city in an all-round and deep-seated manner. As of the end of June this year, the balance of technology loans in the city exceeded 2 trillion yuan.
Startup Support: Solving the “First Kilometer” Financing Problem
“We are going to pitch at the Shenzhen Angel Mother Fund and are currently discussing some cooperation intentions.” At the 10th Global Broadcasting Conference, Yang Bang, a 2024 doctoral student in Electronic Science and Technology at Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), won one of only six global spots for the 2025 IEEE Photonics Student Achievement Award.
The project he and his team developed, the “Data Center Optical Interconnection Intelligent Sensing Module,” has iterated to a second-generation prototype and is now preparing for company registration. “Many cities have extended ‘olive branches’ to us, but we firmly choose Shenzhen.”
Insisting on investing early, small, long-term, and in hard tech—this is the commitment of Shenzhen capital. In recent years, Shenzhen has gradually established a full-lifecycle continuous investment system, successively setting up a trillion-yuan government investment guidance fund, a billion-yuan angel investment guidance fund, and a 2 billion yuan seed fund, attracting Ping An Life, Taiping Insurance, the Social Security Fund’s Bay Area Technology Innovation Special Fund, and the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Technology Innovation Fund to form large-scale sub-fund groups.
Currently, the Shenzhen Angel Mother Fund has invested in 973 seed-stage and early-stage high-tech enterprises, including 6 unicorn companies and 182 potential unicorn companies valued at over $100 million.
For tech companies in the initial stage, “lack of funds, lack of credit, and lack of collateral” are common challenges. Targeting this pain point, Shenzhen has broken the limitations of traditional credit that “emphasize collateral and neglect credit” by creating a dedicated “credit ID” for startups, solving the “first kilometer” financing problem.
Shenzhen, relying on Shenzhen Credit, jointly launched the “Tech Startup Pass” credit product with banks, integrating multi-dimensional data such as social security, taxation, and intellectual property to build a credit evaluation model covering 3 major categories and 12 dimensions, including corporate fundamentals, talent competitiveness, and future growth potential. This “data for credit” model can accurately outline the development potential of startups, helping banks lend more confidently. To date, the “Tech Startup Pass” has granted credit and loans totaling 4.84 billion yuan to 3,761 startup tech companies, allowing many startups with technology but no collateral to invest安心ly in R&D.
Growth Empowerment: Credit Innovation Helps Tech Companies “Take Off”
When tech companies enter the growth stage, their funding needs shift from “startup capital” to “scale investment” for R&D upgrades, market expansion, and even mergers and acquisitions. Shenzhen injects “acceleration” into enterprises through credit model innovation and full-chain listing services.
In terms of credit support, Shenzhen has launched innovative products like the “Soaring Loan” to address banks’ concerns about “daring not to lend or unwillingness to lend.” In traditional credit, banks and enterprises often bear risk unilaterally, but the “Soaring Loan” introduces a profit-sharing mechanism, designing models such as “loan interest rates linked to business performance,” “preferential loans + future financial service priority rights,” and “preferential loans + future
