Cultural Space Investment and Operation | WAVES New Wave 2025
This is a new era for China's venture capital and investment. Currently, the Chinese venture capital market is not only at the turning point of the cycle bottoming out but also in the in - depth period of structural transformation. In the new ecosystem dominated by policies, with high concentration of state - owned assets and capital, only by conforming to the trend and making flexible adjustments can we capture certain opportunities amidst uncertainties.
From June 11th to 12th, at the Liangzhu Culture and Art Center in Hangzhou, the 36Kr WAVES New Wave 2025 Conference, themed "New Era", gathered top investors in the venture capital field, founders of emerging enterprises, as well as scientists, creators, and scholars deeply involved in technology, innovation, and business. They jointly discussed cutting - edge issues such as AI technological innovation, the wave of globalization, and value re - evaluation, dissected their views on business ideals and the future world, and together explored, searched for, and headed towards the "New Era" of China's venture capital.
On June 12th, Chen Xiong, the deputy general manager of Zhejiang Cultural Space Development Co., Ltd., brought a theme sharing titled "Investment and Operation of Cultural Spaces".
The following is the content of Chen Xiong's speech, edited by 36Kr:
Good morning, dear investors! In the just - concluded round - table discussion, it was mentioned that artificial intelligence is the most suitable entrepreneurial field for young people in their 30s. Today, as a member of the "sunset red" team born in the 1970s, I would like to share with you some of our explorations in the investment and operation of cultural spaces. These efforts may seem not in line with traditional investment logic.
The Zhejiang Cultural Industry Investment Group is one of the four major investment sectors under the Publicity Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, on par with the Publishing Group, Zhejiang Radio and Television, and Zhejiang Daily. Our group mainly covers three major business sectors and an investment platform, with a core focus on cultural space operation. In the field of film and television culture, we own Zhewen Film and Television, a listed company; in the field of digital culture, we hold the first digital exchange license in the country for the Digital Cultural Exchange. These three major business sectors together constitute the business structure of our group.
In recent years, cultural spaces and cultural and tourism projects thrived before the pandemic. However, after the pandemic, many projects encountered significant operational problems. Not only was the overall revenue affected, but the footfall also dropped significantly. After analysis, this was mainly because the pre - operation planning was neglected during the construction process. Many scenic spots directly involved architectural design institutes at the project launch, creating magnificent buildings. However, they faced numerous difficulties during the operation phase, as the building structure, pedestrian flow lines, and business format planning did not meet the later - stage operational requirements.
Against this background, we entered the cultural space field at this time. Although this field requires heavy investment and has relatively low output efficiency, as a provincial - level state - owned enterprise, we are more committed to fulfilling social responsibilities. However, in the subsequent operation process, we have also conducted in - depth thinking at the industrial level, and I will share more details with you later.
Our cultural space business integrates planning, consulting, investment, construction, and back - end property management, cultural and creative development, and operation. We are committed to improving the management of public cultural spaces from the "availability" and "sufficiency" of hardware facilities to the "quality" and "excellence" of software services, breaking through the bottleneck of "easy construction, difficult operation and maintenance", which is also an important task currently being promoted in various places.
Next, I will take the Zhejiang Cultural Center as an example to share our practical experience. The Zhejiang Cultural Center has a construction area of 320,000 square meters and a total investment of nearly 4 billion yuan. It includes four major venues: the Zhejiang Literature Museum, the Zhejiang Library, the Zhejiang Museum, and the Zhejiang Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum. Nationwide, it is quite rare to have these four major venues built together, so we call it a cultural complex. The entire project forms a building space of 300,000 square meters, including 80,000 square meters of public space. At that time, the provincial government proposed to use commercial means to support the operation of these public cultural spaces.
Since the building structures of public cultural spaces mostly have non - standard business formats, the energy consumption and operation costs are very high. Therefore, we established Zhejiang Cultural Space Development Co., Ltd. to carry out a commercial layout for the overall project. The total investment in the Zhejiang Cultural Center is 3.23 billion yuan, and it has become an important project in Zhejiang's cultural industry, defined as a cultural landmark in the new era, integrating the inheritance of humanistic spirit, the experience of life aesthetics, the incubation of cultural and creative industries, and the display of cultural exchanges. Through the four museums, one center, and multiple service ecosystem partners, we have formed the advantages of a new mechanism featuring government leadership, city - enterprise collaboration, market operation, and diversified complementarity. In the integrated operation of the Zhejiang Cultural Center, we have achieved the integration of space operation, curatorial content, cultural and creative development, and property services. Among them, cultural and creative development is a very important link. Cultural spaces and cultural and tourism spaces involve a large amount of IP operation, and cultural and creative development is an important extension of IP.
The cultural and creative field is often referred to as "metaphysics". Although we often see some cultural and creative hit products, it is not easy to achieve systematic and sustainable cultural and creative development. Cultural and creative products have a strong offline consumption attribute. Consumers usually only visit the cultural and creative venues to buy related products after visiting the offline scenes. Although online channels and live - streaming e - commerce also have a certain influence, it is quite accidental. Take the Zhejiang Museum last year as an example. The 300 - square - meter cultural and creative store in the museum had an annual revenue of 21.45 million yuan, which fully reflects the significant advantages of offline consumption.
Our space operation mainly focuses on four major sectors. First, in the pre - construction stage, we conduct overall planning for commercial spaces, including the linkage between operation spaces and cultural business formats. In the later operation process, we integrate IP activity resources. Last year, we launched a total of 186 various activities, creating cultural brands with space characteristics and cultural fair brands, and introducing IPs with cultural attributes and communication influence into the space, achieving large - scale events every season and medium - scale events every month.
In the round - table discussion, it was also mentioned that the business environment in Zhejiang Province is relatively open, and the leaders are quite progressive. When planning exhibitions, in addition to traditional exhibitions such as those by Xinhua News Agency, we also tried to introduce many international exhibitions, especially anime exhibitions, such as One Piece and Ultraman. Although we have always been cautious in ideological control, the leaders believe that the content and IPs loved by young people can also be tried for market - based operation. Facts have proved that these exhibitions have achieved remarkable results in terms of social effects and economic value. Next, we will also conduct in - depth cooperation with institutions such as Toei Animation in Japan.
The third is cultural and creative transformation. We have built a cultural and creative transformation platform. Currently, Zhejiang Cultural Investment has 126 partners in the cultural and creative industry chain. We have independently developed more than 800 cultural and creative products and jointly developed more than 4,000 cultural and creative products, forming a relatively complete industrial chain matrix. This year, we also obtained the authorization for major national tasks. For example, for the National Games at the end of the year, we obtained the authorization, production, and sales qualifications for intangible cultural heritage categories, as well as related businesses such as diplomatic gifts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The fourth is characteristic research and study. We have developed immersive research and study courses, exploring innovation in research and study courses through in - depth cooperation with cultural museums. The IPs, industry attributes, and professional attributes of these cultural museums are very strong. For example, through cooperation with the provincial meteorological observatory, we included the astronomical observatory, which was originally not open to the public, in the research and study business, creating products with high thresholds and high customer unit prices.
In addition, we have also carried out digital empowerment around space construction, including explorations in mentor systems and artificial intelligence analysis. In the future, these cultural scenarios are expected to become application scenarios for many entrepreneurial projects. As I mentioned at the beginning, although there is a large gap between investment and output in our work, we are more committed to fulfilling social responsibilities. Therefore, we welcome good projects and technologies from all investors to conduct in - depth cooperation with us and jointly explore application scenarios.
After two years of operation, the Zhejiang model has formed a complete set of models, including innovative cooperation, management models, innovative business formats, and pre - stage capital investment models, aiming at the coordination between public undertakings and industries and industries supporting public undertakings, thus improving the efficiency of fiscal fund use.
Next, I will share with you some cases outside the Zhejiang Cultural Center. Currently, cultural venues such as the Liangzhu National Repository of Editions, the Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum, the Zhejiang Art Museum, and the Silk Museum are all under our group's integrated operation. In addition, major projects such as the Provincial Party History Museum, the Sichuan Celebrity Museum, the Zhejiang Natural History Museum, and the Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum are also under our integrated operation. The Jinhua City Library is currently under construction, and the Shaoxing East Zhejiang Canal Cultural Park was visited by President Xi in 2023. In the past two years, canal culture has been strongly advocated by the state. We have carried out overall operation planning for the entire park. After the preliminary renovation, it has entered the investment - attraction and operation stage. Projects such as the Songyang Cultural and Creative Park and the Shanglinhu Celadon Cultural Park are also quite distinctive. The Shanglinhu Yue Kiln Celadon is one of the birthplaces of Chinese porcelain. The secret - color porcelain dedicated to the royal family at the end of the Tang Dynasty was produced here. However, due to historical reasons, this industry was once in decline. Now, Cixi City has rebuilt the Shanglinhu Yue Kiln Celadon Cultural Park and invited us to conduct pre - operation planning. Currently, the project is in the process of renovation and is planned to reopen on October 1st. In this process, we are also exploring how to conduct in - depth linkage with the industry.
In addition, we also pay attention to county - level projects, such as the Wuyue King Site, the China Textile Museum (Shaoxing), the Dongyang Cultural and Art Center, and the Yongkang Cultural and Art Center. In the subsequent work, we will strengthen communication with high - quality partners, explore how to link with industrial funds, pay attention to the diversity of cultural spaces, create online popularity, and improve the innovation and digital application level of cultural spaces.
Although we have shown the regular content in the PPT, I am more concerned about how to fundamentally solve the problems. As mentioned before, our work seems not in line with investment logic because most of it involves heavy - asset investment, and the four solutions proposed later have relatively small investment returns.
How to solve this problem? I believe that industrialization is an important solution. We often say that "culture + service" can solve the pre - investment problem, but in fact, the effect is limited. The key lies in how to combine with the industry. Take the Shanglinhu Yue Kiln Celadon Cultural Park I mentioned earlier as an example. In addition to work in space layout, business format planning, investment attraction, and services, there is also a celadon industry in Cixi. When designing the park, we transformed two buildings into the largest celadon production and research base in East China and connected with the diplomatic personnel service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, diplomatic personnel duty - free shops, and cross - border e - commerce channels. By integrating industrial resources through the park, we can achieve industrial support, which is the future development direction.
As we all know, before the pandemic, the real estate market was at its peak. The business logic behind many cultural and tourism scenic spots was deeply linked to real estate. Many real estate companies participated in the construction of cultural and tourism scenic spots with the aim of boosting the sales of real estate residential properties through the construction of these scenic spots. Now, with the decline of the real estate market and the decoupling of cultural and tourism scenic spots from real estate, many places are facing operational difficulties. Except for a few scenic spots with huge traffic attributes, how can the remaining 70% of conventional cultural and tourism scenic spots solve this problem? I believe that after decoupling from real estate, combining with the industry is a very good and even very important solution.
Every cultural and tourism scenic spot and cultural space has a fit point with the local cultural traditions and industries. If an industrial solution can be found to support the cultural and tourism scenic spots, it can not only achieve a balance between income and expenditure but may also become a good investment project. This is a long - term cause that requires large - scale resource integration. In this process, we initially focus more on fulfilling social responsibilities and doing a good job in the operation of cultural spaces. Later, we welcome good technologies and projects from all investors to conduct in - depth discussions and cooperation with us. All our application spaces and scenarios will be open to you, and we can even build them together. Thank you!