With a budget of 2.5 billion, Suzhou starts to attract talent.

According to Jiema LP of the investment community, recently, Suzhou Talent No. 1 Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership) was officially established with a capital contribution of 2.501 billion yuan.

The new fund has a clear goal - talent. It aims to assist high - level talents in contributing to the construction of industrial clusters and the development of the local economy. This year, Suzhou has set a goal of adding 1 million various types of talents in three years. Now, Suzhou's state - owned assets are investing real money, and the pace of talent recruitment is accelerating.

This scene is just a microcosm of the talent competition and industrial competition across the country.

Suzhou Recruits Talents by Establishing a New Fund, and the Investors Emerge

Back in March this year, at the 2025 Suzhou Entrepreneurs Conference, the implementation plans of the "Million Talent Addition Plan", the "Alliance of a Hundred Universities and a Thousand Enterprises", and the "Hundred - Billion Talent Fund" were released, inviting global talents.

Among them, the "Hundred - Billion Talent Fund" is to build a full - life - cycle financial support system by setting up a hundred - billion talent fund, focusing on supporting talent projects in Suzhou's "1030" industrial tracks. First, invest in leading talents, focusing on national, provincial, and municipal talents and teams; second, invest in competition participants, focusing on high - quality talent projects that stand out in the "Win in Suzhou" series of competitions such as the International Maker Competition, the Global Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, and the Youth Elite Competition; third, invest in start - up enterprises; fourth, invest in hard technology. Real money is used to attract talent agglomeration.

At the beginning of June, the Suzhou Talent No. 1 Fund completed the signing of an intention cooperation agreement, which will help high - level talents contribute to the construction of industrial clusters and the development of the local economy.

Recently, Qichacha showed that Suzhou Talent No. 1 Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership) was established with a capital contribution of 2.501 billion yuan. Its business scope includes equity investment and venture capital.

After equity penetration, this enterprise is jointly funded by Suzhou Innovation Investment Group Co., Ltd. (Suzhou VC Group), Suzhou Chuangyuan Investment and Development (Group) Co., Ltd. (Chuangyuan Group), Suzhou Asset Investment Management Group Co., Ltd., Suzhou State - owned Capital Investment Group Co., Ltd. (Suzhou State - owned Investment), and Suzhou Angel Venture Capital Guidance Fund Management Co., Ltd. (Suzhou Angel Mother Fund).

Among them, Suzhou Angel Mother Fund serves as the private fund manager. As a strategic fulcrum for Suzhou VC Group's strategy of "investing in early - stage, small - scale, and technology - based projects", Suzhou Angel Mother Fund focuses on cutting - edge fields such as biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and high - end equipment manufacturing. Currently, Suzhou Angel Mother Fund has participated in the establishment of more than 60 sub - funds with a total scale of over 15 billion yuan, and the sub - funds have invested in more than 700 enterprises.

The other investors are also all state - owned units in Suzhou. Suzhou VC Group shoulders the mission of state - owned venture capital with a management scale of 260 billion yuan; Chuangyuan Group is the only manufacturing enterprise among the state - owned enterprises in Suzhou and has been included in the top 500 Chinese manufacturing enterprises for 18 consecutive years; the major shareholders behind Suzhou Asset Investment Management Group Co., Ltd. include the Suzhou Finance Bureau and the local securities firm Dongwu Securities in Suzhou; Suzhou State - owned Investment is 100% owned by the Suzhou State - owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

To a certain extent, talent agglomeration reflects the innovation level of a region. The establishment of this new fund is also Suzhou's latest measure to compete for talents. Before this, to effectively address the concerns of young talents, the Talent Office of the Suzhou Municipal Party Committee held several young talent symposiums to conduct centralized discussions on the support measures most needed by young talents and provide guarantees in areas that young talents care most about.

For example, relying on its strong industrial foundation, Suzhou will offer more than 300,000 high - quality job opportunities and develop more than 30,000 high - quality internship opportunities for young talents every year. When fresh graduates with a bachelor's degree or above come to Suzhou for job interviews, they can receive a transportation subsidy of up to 2,000 yuan and free accommodation for up to 14 days. For urgently needed and scarce talents in fields such as artificial intelligence, they can get a one - time living subsidy of up to 100,000 yuan... Suzhou aims to add 1 million various types of talents in three years.

In the New Round of Urban Industrial Competition, Talent Recruitment is the First Step

To some extent, the current industrial competition between cities is actually a competition for talents.

For most young entrepreneurs, the biggest challenge in the start - up period is "where to get the money". Recently, the Hong Kong High - end Talent Venture Capital Fund was officially launched. The initial fundraising scale of the fund reached HK$1 billion. It aims to focus on cutting - edge fields such as technology, healthcare, and consumption with Hong Kong as the fulcrum, support innovative talents and excellent projects, and attract global top - notch science and technology talents and start - up enterprises to Hong Kong.

Similarly, not long ago, Zhangjiagang Talent No. 1 Phase II Venture Capital Partnership was established, and Suqian also registered and established a Talent Science and Technology Innovation Fund with a capital contribution of 200 million yuan. Looking around, Beijing, Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Changsha and other places have all issued relevant talent funds focusing on high - level talents.

The flow of talents often determines the agglomeration degree of local enterprises. The focus of local funds has shifted from excavating high - tech enterprises to attaching more importance to talents. Today, the talent demand generated by industrial iteration has begun to change to a higher dimension, and the power of high - end and sophisticated talents sometimes plays a decisive role.

For example, in the "Academician - Industry Partner" program in Wuhan Optics Valley, after the team of academician Zhang Qingjie of the Chinese Academy of Sciences settled in, it drove the agglomeration of more than 20 upstream and downstream enterprises, forming a third - generation semiconductor material cluster. The Talent Bureau of Wuhan Optics Valley mentioned that "for every top - notch talent introduced, an average of 500 million yuan of industrial investment can be leveraged."

It is not only necessary to recruit talents but also to retain them. When the wave of industrial investment promotion sweeps across the country, there are many cases where enterprises that many cities have patiently cultivated for many years are "intercepted" by other regions just when they are about to see results.

It can be seen that in addition to establishing funds to support young talent entrepreneurship in the talent recruitment policies of various places, including the recent ones in Suzhou and Hong Kong, or the earlier ones in Beijing and Shenzhen, more importantly, the supporting policy measures also cover more basic and concerned issues such as living and housing. After all, only when talents are willing to stay for a long time can they be transformed into real industrial strength.

A new round of urban reshuffle is taking place here.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Investment Community". Author: Wu Qiong. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.