China's Northernmost '985' University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Spawns a Hard-Tech Startup Army

April 2023,Shenzhen Core Medical Technology Co., Ltd.Signed a listing agreement with Huatai United Securities, officially entering the pre-listing tutoring phase and initiating the A-share IPO process.

The company is best known for developing the world’s smallest and lightest artificial heart. Its founder, Yu Shunzhou, hails from Harbin Institute of Technology (hereinafter referred to as “HIT”), a Project 985 university located at China’s northernmost tip. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at HIT and currently serves as an adjunct professor at HIT’s Shenzhen Campus.

In fact, Yu Shunzhou’s entrepreneurial journey is merely a microcosm of the commercialization of Harbin Institute of Technology’s (HIT) research achievements. Beyond the healthcare sector, HIT is also building a formidable entrepreneurial cohort: Du Zhijiang, founder of Sizerobotics; Shi Jinbo, co-founder and chairman of Lequn Automation; Mo Zhuoya, founder and CEO of Bowei Technology; Leng Xiaokun, founder of Leju Robotics; Jin Haiyang, founder of Bowei Medical; Zhou Hongwei, founder of Pico; Wang Yang, General Manager and Chief Scientist of Geespace; and Xu Ming, Chairman and Founder of GalaxySpace, among others.

From robotics to VR and commercial spaceflight, Harbin Institute of Technology alumni are making their mark across these fields.。

In 1920, the Harbin Chinese-Russian Industrial School (the predecessor of Harbin Institute of Technology) was established, with two departments: Railway Construction and Electrical Mechanical Engineering.

After the founding of New China, Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) was designated by the state as one of the two model universities nationwide for learning from foreign higher education models. At that time, HIT was built from the ground up following the model of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, the top-ranked university in the Soviet Union. Each year, 150 science and engineering faculty members were transferred from universities across China to HIT to conduct research and pursue advanced studies under the guidance of Soviet professors.

During the period of cooling Sino-Soviet relations, Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) remained at the core of China’s science and engineering universities, driving the early development of nearly all engineering disciplines. HIT was also recognized as a leading domestic university."The Mother of Engineering Disciplines"。

Currently, Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) has multiple disciplines ranked in the top 1% and even the top 1‰ worldwide, such as engineering science, materials science, and computer science, with its instrumentation science and technology ranking first globally. Over the years, HIT has cultivated generations of industrial elites for the country, including113 academicians from the two academies, and over 450 professionals from aerospace and national defense headquarters。

As an engineering-focused institution, Harbin Institute of Technology has consistently concentrated on the research, development, and application of cutting-edge technologies.

China’s first computer capable of playing chess and speaking, China’s first arc welding robot and spot welding robot, China’s first new-system radar, the first small satellite independently developed under the leadership of a Chinese university, achievement of the world’s first high-orbit satellite-to-ground high-speed two-way laser communication experiment, breakthrough in key technologies for the support structure system of the world’s largest-aperture radio telescope, contribution to the successful “first light” of China’s “Sky Eye,” and development of a space robotic arm that conducted the world’s first on-orbit scientific experiment in human-robot collaborative maintenance aboard Tiangong-2......

"Hardcore"Achieve the Most Precise Positioning at Harbin Institute of Technology.

Leveraging its distinctive disciplinary strengths, Harbin Institute of Technology has become a highly sought-after institution among investors in fields such as robotics, AI, and the metaverse.

An investor from a Shanghai-based venture capital firm stated bluntly, “Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) is at the forefront of robotics research in China, and many student projects are closely watched by investment institutions. Typically, when someone from a lab launches a startup, it encourages others to follow suit. Currently, we have already invested in two HIT alumni who were mentored by the same professor.”

We can clearly sense the market’s strong appetite for Harbin Institute of Technology’s (HIT) innovative capabilities. But how are these capabilities being unleashed? What are the key factors behind HIT’s formation of a formidable entrepreneurial cohort? VBInsight has summarized the following three points for readers’ reference.

First, there is an emphasis on intellectual property rights, which means that the university can promptly protect its achievements and rapidly advance the commercialization of high-value patents.

A set of patent data provided by Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) serves as strong evidence: In 2020, HIT held nearly 9,000 valid invention patents, ranking third among universities nationwide, with over 1,000 patents commercialized, also securing the third position among Chinese universities.

A relevant official from the Intellectual Property Management Department of Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) introduced that HIT’s intellectual property workShifting from high-speed development focused on incremental growth to high-quality growth centered on existing stock.

Since 2016, Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) has implemented a series of intellectual property management reforms: it eliminated full subsidies for patent applications and replaced them with a lifecycle incentive mechanism comprising “application subsidies, custody compensation, and revenue sharing.” The “High-Quality Patent Cultivation Plan” conducts pre-filing assessments of technical solutions through comprehensive search and analysis, performs technical decomposition, implements tiered and classified management after layout, and formulates differentiated commercialization strategies based on these classifications.

Second, to allow professors “room for entrepreneurial endeavors,” establish a system for incubating the commercialization of research outcomes.

On June 1, 2023, the official website of the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange disclosed that Harbin Sizerobot Intelligent Medical Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Sizerobot”), a domestic unicorn in the surgical robot sector, had passed the meeting of the Listing Committee. The sponsoring institution is CITIC Securities, and the company plans to raise RMB 2.029 billion.

This IPO emerged from a professor-led startup. The founder, Du Zhijiang, is a professor at the School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology. His parties acting in concert—Yan Zhiyuan, Wang Weidong, and Dong Wei—are respectively an assistant researcher, an associate professor, and a professor at the same school.

Among them, Du Zhijiang and Yan Zhiyuan have held actual management control since the company’s inception, serving as Chairman of the Board and General Manager, respectively. In September 2022, Du Zhijiang and Yan Zhiyuan separately signed agreements with Harbin Institute of Technology“Agreement on Entrepreneurship During Leave from Post”, with a deadline of September 2025.

In accordance with Article 17 of the “Administrative Measures of Harbin Institute of Technology for Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements” (2020), subject to university approval, the creators of scientific and technological achievements may, while fulfilling their primary job responsibilities, engage in part-time work at enterprises to carry out activities related to the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, or take a leave of absence from their posts for up to three years to start their own businesses, upon university approval.Personnel relations shall be retained at the university during the period of entrepreneurship leave.

Upon expiration of the leave period, professors may choose to return to their original institutions or terminate their employment contracts with those institutions to continue their entrepreneurial ventures. This means that professors have the flexibility to either commit fully to entrepreneurship or return to academia to continue their research.

If the “Leave-of-Absence Agreement” grants professors freedom, then establishing an industry–academia–research collaboration model provides them with resources.

In December 1999, relying on Harbin Institute of TechnologyHarbin Institute of Technology National University Science ParkEstablished. Currently, Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) Science Park has established an innovation and entrepreneurship incubation system with the joint participation of venture capital firms, professional consulting agencies, technological innovation institutions, intermediaries, and business service providers. By integrating industrial resources, it provides comprehensive, end-to-end entrepreneurial services to incubated enterprises across a series of areas including policy support, funding, technology, talent, information, financing guarantees, training, and premises. It supports incubated enterprises and projects through measures such as non-repayable grants and equity injections, with cumulative support amounting to nearly RMB 15 million. It has become a high-tech industry incubation base with distinctive features of Harbin Institute of Technology.

It is reported that in 2021 alone, the Harbin Institute of Technology Science Park incubated 31 enterprises and 66 innovation and entrepreneurship projects, providing RMB 3.94 million in support funds.

Third, the “professor + student” entrepreneurial endeavor has given rise to a unicorn.

As of now, RoboSense and LQ Automation, both affiliated with Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), have joined the ranks of unicorns. The distinguishing feature of these two companies is their professor-student entrepreneurial model.

Among them, Zhu Xiaorui, Chief Scientist at RoboSense, was formerly a professor and doctoral supervisor at Harbin Institute of Technology. Qiu Chunxin, the company’s founder and CEO, completed his postdoctoral research at the Shenzhen Research Institute of Harbin Institute of Technology, specializing in robot navigation and control, and was also Dr. Zhu’s first doctoral student.

FoundingRoboSenseIn the early days, Zhu Xiaorui, who had incubated DJI Technology, effortlessly secured angel and Series A investors for RoboSense and increased investment in R&D. Qiu Chunxin once revealed that his mentor, Zhu Xiaorui, oversaw two research lines: one developed the flight control system for DJI drones, while the other focused on lidar for autonomous vehicles, which eventually evolved into RoboSense.

Similar stories have also occurred inLi Qun AutomationPreviously, while pursuing a degree in automation at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), founder Shi Jinbo met Li Zexiang, who was then a visiting professor at HIT. She subsequently enrolled in the doctoral program at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) under Li’s supervision. Inspired by Li, she co-founded LQ Robot, an industrial robotics company, in 2011 together with five other partners.

It is well known that a major pain point in China’s technology startup ecosystem is the disconnect among industry, academia, research, and application: those versed in academia lack industrial insight, those with industrial expertise lack funding, and those with capital fail to understand market needs. Figures like Zhu Xiaorui and Li Zexiang, however,Professors with extensive academic and industry experience serve as the key nexus connecting academia, industry, and the investment community.。

In the 1950s, more than 800 passionate young people, with an average age of only 27.5, converged at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) from all corners of the country. At that time, HIT’s teaching buildings were dilapidated, and the university was nicknamed “Malu University” (Horse-Cart University) because horse-drawn carts were the only means of transportation available.

They established new majors and compiled new textbooks, starting from scratch while learning as they taught, a process vividly described by then-President Li Chang as"The Eight Hundred Heroes"。

Through the efforts of the “Eight Hundred Heroes,” Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) established 24 new majors in the 1950s and 1960s, becoming the birthplace for the creation of new disciplines at engineering colleges across China. The establishment of these new majors urgently addressed the pressing needs of the nation’s rapidly advancing industrialization. HIT was the first among science and engineering institutions nationwide to implement a five-year academic program, conferring the title of “Engineer” upon graduation. This distinction earned HIT nationwide renown as the “Cradle of Engineers.”

At Harbin Institute of Technology, the “Eight Hundred Heroes” are “"Strict Specifications, Mastery of Craftsmanship"“The creators of the university motto are also its practitioners and the source of strength for Harbin Institute of Technology’s development.”

Nowadays, the “Eight Hundred Heroes” spirit has become a hallmark of the HIT community. In both academic exploration and innovation commercialization, it represents the rigorous and aspirational genes embedded in the DNA of every HIT member.