18 scientist entrepreneurs in Shanghai worth paying attention to this year
Shanghai is not only the national financial center but also accelerating its transformation into a high - ground for scientific and technological innovation in China.
Last year, Shanghai established three leading industrial investment mother funds with a total scale of approximately 89 billion yuan, focusing on strategic emerging industries such as integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, and biomedicine. Driven by the combined forces of capital and policies, scientific researchers are becoming one of the most important new forces in Shanghai's entrepreneurial landscape.
Data from CVSource of ChinaVenture shows that as of November this year, a total of 109 new companies established after January 1, 2025, in Shanghai have received financing.
Among them, 19 companies were founded by 18 experts, professors, or scholars. In terms of universities, Fudan University leads by a large margin, contributing 7 entrepreneurial companies; Shanghai Jiao Tong University has 2, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences system has 3.
In terms of industrial distribution, Shanghai shows a different focus from Beijing and Shenzhen - Controlled nuclear fusion has become the most dynamic entrepreneurial track. Six fusion companies have been established in Shanghai this year and have received support from top domestic early - stage investment institutions.
Artificial intelligence remains popular, with a total of 7 new companies established; and biomedicine, an advantageous industry in Shanghai, also has 4 newly - established enterprises that have completed financing.
In terms of the investor structure, university - affiliated capital still plays an important role in the early stage. Fudan Science and Technology Innovation and Furo Investment from the Fudan system, and Hanyuan Assets from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University system are all relatively active; well - known institutions such as Zhongke Chuangxing, Yunqi Capital, and Gaorong Venture Capital also frequently appear on the investment lists of these projects.
01. Shanghai Creation & Energy
University: Shanghai University. Industry: High - temperature superconductivity / New energy equipment
Shanghai Creation & Energy was established in August this year. It is a hard - technology enterprise originating from the Key Laboratory of High - Temperature Superconductivity at Shanghai University. It focuses on the technology of the second - generation high - temperature superconducting tapes and urban power grid application scenarios, and is dedicated to the industrialization of superconducting materials and the R & D of related engineering equipment.
The company has received investments from Shuimu Chunjin Capital, Jingyi Electric Appliance, and Shanghai Juhui Biomedical Industry Development Co., Ltd.
The founder of this company, Cai Chuanbing, is one of the representative scientists in the field of high - temperature superconductivity in China. He is a leading talent in Shanghai, a Weichang Scholar at Shanghai University, and the first - batch Pujiang Scholar in Shanghai. He currently serves as the director of the Shanghai Key Laboratory of High - Temperature Superconductivity.
He completed his doctoral research at the Shanghai Institute of Metallurgy (now the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and studied in Japan, the UK, and Germany successively. He returned to China and joined Shanghai University in 2005. He has long been engaged in the industrialization of high - temperature superconducting tapes, the physics of oxide thin - film devices, and the research on superconducting electromagnetic applications. He has published more than 350 papers in international journals, obtained more than 30 authorized patents, led the formulation of 2 national standards, and has presided over many major projects such as the national "863" and "973" programs and the national key R & D plan for nuclear fusion.
In fact, Cai Chuanbing's industrialization exploration started early. As early as 2011, he founded "Shanghai Creation Superconductivity". In the following more than a decade, it completed a total of 5 rounds of financing, and received a Series C financing from Sumikin Investment in January this year. Shanghai Creation & Energy, established in August this year, is regarded as a further expansion of his industrial system, targeting a wider range of superconducting application scenarios and equipment needs.
02. Nova Fusion
University: Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Industry: Small - scale fusion reactor / FRC technology route
Nova Fusion was established in 2024. It is a small - scale modular nuclear fusion enterprise adopting the Field - Reversed Configuration (FRC) route, committed to developing a safe, zero - carbon, and low - cost fusion reactor system for future distributed energy scenarios.
After its establishment, the company quickly received a 500 - million - yuan angel - round financing jointly invested by institutions such as Guanghe Venture Capital, Mingshi Capital, Legend Capital, Gaorong Venture Capital, and Yunqi Capital, breaking the single - financing record of domestic private fusion companies.
Founder Professor Guo Houyang was born in Gushi, Henan in 1965. He graduated from Hefei University of Technology and the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences successively. He is one of the most experienced Chinese scientists in the field of nuclear fusion globally. After obtaining a doctorate from the Institute of Energy and Materials at the University of Quebec in Canada in 1993, he entered the Canadian Nuclear Fusion Research Center and later became the person - in - charge of the TCS experiment at the University of Washington in the United States. He joined TAE in 2008 and has held important positions such as Chief Scientist and Head of Experimental Strategy.
In 2019, when ENN Group launched a compact fusion experiment, Guo Houyang returned to China to serve as the CTO of fusion; then he continued to lead the R & D of plasma physics at Energy Singularity. In 2025, he officially founded Nova Fusion, choosing FRC as the core route, hoping to quickly promote industrialization with a fusion system with a simpler structure and lower engineering difficulty.
03. Yanchao Energy
University: Singapore - Peking - Oxford (SPO) Joint Program. Industry: Controlled nuclear fusion
Yanchao Energy was established in March 2025. It is an energy technology enterprise focusing on the integration of AI technology and fusion engineering, committed to accelerating the simulation of fusion devices, the design of superconducting equipment, and engineering optimization.
The company received an angel - round financing of hundreds of millions of yuan jointly led by Yanshan Technology and Yanshan Investment in October this year.
Founder Hao Xianglin graduated from the SPO full - scholarship doctoral program. His research direction is the stellarator superconducting magnet technology. He was selected into the "Peacock Plan" in Shenzhen. He has experience in the R & D of fusion devices, AI engineering, and technology entrepreneurship, and is one of the young fusion entrepreneurs with both engineering and business backgrounds.
Yanchao Energy believes that future fusion engineering must rely on AI - driven simulation systems and data inversion technology to reduce experimental costs and shorten the design cycle. After its establishment, the company built a composite team across AI, superconductivity, and plasma, and established a sustainable iterative engineering platform in magnet design and high - field applications.
Yanchao Energy hopes to provide a more efficient engineering toolchain for the fusion energy and high - temperature superconductivity industries through the cross - path of "AI + fusion" and become an important infrastructure company for the future fusion ecosystem.
04. Junhe Atom
University: N/A. Industry: Commercial nuclear fusion
Junhe Atom was established in June 2025. It is an advanced nuclear energy enterprise focusing on the R & D of small - scale modular reactors (SMR) and hybrid energy systems.
The company completed a financing of tens of millions of yuan in September this year, led by Zhongke Chuangxing.
Founder Tian Jiashu is one of the most experienced experts in the domestic nuclear energy field. He once served as the deputy chief engineer of China National Nuclear Corporation and China General Nuclear Power Group, led the technology integration of the "Hualong One", and served as the chairman of the evaluation committee of the ITER Council and a nuclear safety consultant of the IAEA, with both an international perspective and in - depth engineering knowledge.
Junhe Atom takes SMR as the core direction, arranges for equipment development, engineering design, and global market - oriented applications, and is committed to building a safe, flexible, and economical clean energy solution for the future.
The company hopes to become a key force in the engineering and internationalization of China's SMR technology in the transformation of the new energy system. It has jointly established the "Advanced Nuclear Energy System Laboratory" with Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
05. Dongsheng Fusion / Xingji Power
University: Fudan University
Industry: Controlled nuclear fusion
Dongsheng Fusion was established in Shanghai in July 2025 relying on Fudan University. It is committed to developing the technology of a small - scale strong - magnetic - field poly - power station based on "deuterium - helium - 3" as fuel.
The core team is the Xu Min team from the Institute of Modern Physics at Fudan University. This team chose the neutron - free deuterium - helium - 3 fusion route (D + 3He -> H + 4He + energy) and currently launched the "Chenguang Experimental Device" project, aiming to promote the deuterium - helium - 3 fusion from the laboratory to engineering implementation.
This project mainly includes two core technological breakthroughs. One is the high - temperature superconducting strong - magnetic - field magnet, which uses advanced high - temperature superconducting materials to achieve device compactness and strong - magnetic - field confinement, significantly improving plasma stability and fusion efficiency. The other is the AI - empowered plasma control, which realizes long - term precise control and operation optimization of the plasma through AI algorithms and builds an intelligent experimental platform.
The Xu Min team plans to build three generations of fusion devices in about 12 years, and finally achieve the goal of a net energy gain Q>1 for "deuterium - helium - 3" fusion, laying the foundation for a basically "non - nuclear" nuclear power station.
Judging from the business registration information, Dongsheng Fusion has not received investment yet (maybe it has not been disclosed), but another company associated with it, Shanghai Xingji Power, has completed an angel - round financing.
The legal representative of Dongsheng Fusion is Xu Ping, who is also the legal representative and actual controlling shareholder of Shanghai Xingji Power. Currently, Shanghai Xingji Power has received investments from multiple institutions such as Furo Investment, Shida Group, Qiying Tongchuang Fund, and Chengdu Brilliant Star River.
06. Rixingji Intelligence
University: Fudan University. Industry: Large language model / AI underlying technology
Rixingji Intelligence was established in March 2025. It is an artificial intelligence basic technology company initiated by core members of the Fudan MOSS team, focusing on the R & D and scenario - based applications of large language models and multi - modal base models.
The company has received an angel - round financing of tens of millions of dollars from institutions such as Sequoia Capital China, Gaorong Venture Capital, Light Source Capital, Jiacheng Capital, and Meituan Longzhu.
Founder Sun Tianxiang is a doctoral graduate in computer science from Fudan University. He studied under Professors Huang Xuanjing and Qiu Xipeng. He is the main developer of MOSS, the first domestic ChatGPT - like large model, and has long been engaged in the research of machine learning, natural language processing, and large - model systems. He has published more than a dozen papers in top international AI conferences, with more than 4,200 citations, and is a representative young scientist in the domestic large - model technology path.
07. Yuanyu Intelligence
University: Fudan University. Industry: Scenario - based large model
Yuanyu Intelligence was established in 2025. It is an artificial intelligence enterprise centered on the "Scenario - based Large Model Infrastructure (Agent Infra)", focusing on building a controllable, low - cost, and end - side - runnable scenario - based large - model system.
The company has received investments from Chixing Venture Capital and Baika Jinchuang Investment.
Founder Professor Zhang Qi is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the Fudan NLP Laboratory. He has long been deeply involved in natural language processing, information retrieval, and pre - trained model systems. He has published more than 200 papers, and his books "Introduction to Natural Language Processing" and "Large - Scale Language Models: Theory and Practice" have a landmark influence in the industry.
Since Zhang Qi entered the Fudan NLP Laboratory in 2003, he has witnessed the technological changes from statistical machine learning to deep learning and then to the large - model era. Since 2020, as a core member of the MOSS large model, he has fully participated in the R & D of the large model and promoted the implementation of projects such as the "Mousi" multi - modal model and "Hearing the World".
Professor Zhang Qi is no stranger to the transformation of scientific and technological achievements and industrial implementation. Since 2021, he has cooperated with enterprises such as Honor and Hikvision. In 2023, he promoted multiple large - model implementation projects between Fudan University and enterprises. In 2024, he led the development of the knowledge - Q&A platform "Zhigong" that supports full - offline operation, realizing a privately - deployed knowledge - retrieval system. This time, Yuanyu Intelligence, founded by him, chooses the "scenario - based model" as the entry point to control the model's ability boundary and reduce the inference cost.
08. Fuan Intelligence
University: Fudan University. Industry: AI computational matter / Materials science software
In September 2025, the team of Professor Liu Zhipan from the Department of Chemistry at Fudan University officially launched the LASPAI platform and established Shanghai Fuan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., which is deeply incubated by Fudan Science and Technology Innovation. LASPAI is an AI computational matter R & D platform for chemical, materials, and physical research, enabling researchers to simulate material structures, energies, and reaction paths on the web without relying heavily on experiments.
The core engine of the platform comes from the LASP software accumulated by the research group for 20 years, and the system has trained more than 6 million data related to the periodic table of elements. With the support of AI, researchers only need to input the molecular formula, and a three - dimensional structure can be generated in 10 - 20 seconds, quickly screening the potential energy surface and significantly reducing the experimental trial - and - error cost.
Liu Zhipan is a professor at Fudan University, a part - time professor at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a Changjiang Scholar of the Ministry of Education. He has been committed to theoretical calculation and software method development for many years. LASPAI 1.0 is an engineering practice of "computation driving the future". As the algorithm, data, and product form continue to iterate, the platform is expected to become the "scientific research brain" and "desktop tool" for researchers, promoting breakthroughs in the design of next - generation materials and reactions.
In May this year, Fuan Intelligence received a seed - round financing from institutions such as Fudan Science and Technology Innovation and Furo Investment.
09. Xiangfeng Technology
University: Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Industry: AI meteorological large model
Xiangfeng Technology was established in February 2025. It is a meteorological AI enterprise incubated by the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, providing high - precision prediction services for the energy, agriculture, shipping, marine, and low - altitude economy industries based on the "Fengwu" meteorological large model.
The company received an angel - round financing of tens of millions from Suanfeng Information in August 2025, and its valuation exceeded 100 million yuan.
"Fengwu" is the world's first full - scale, all - element AI meteorological and climate forecasting platform, which can achieve one - year - scale prediction, far exceeding the 40 - day upper limit of traditional models, and has international leadership in extreme weather warning, long - term climate analysis, rapid deduction, etc. More than 70% of the team members have doctoral or master's degrees and come from institutions such as Shanghai AI Lab, ByteDance, and Meta.
Company director Bai Lei is a young scientist at Shanghai AI Lab. He graduated with a doctorate from the University of New South Wales and won the "Yunfan Award" at WAIC. He is responsible for the company's scientific system and technical direction.
The company adopts a collaborative model of "scientist advisors + entrepreneurial team execution" in operation. Zhang Wei serves as the CEO, responsible for product development, market expansion, and industry implementation. Zhang Wei once served as the editor - in - chief and director at NetEase and is also a serial entrepreneur in the field of artificial intelligence. Currently, Xiangfeng Technology's products have been applied to enterprises such as the State Grid, China Southern Power Grid, and China Three Gorges Corporation.
10. Qitu Intelligence
University: University of Waterloo. Industry: AI games
Qitu Intelligence was established in 2025. It is a game - intelligentization company that integrates AI technology with traditional board games, focusing on