China’s Startup Ecosystem at a Crossroads: Insights on Global Access, Capital, and Connectivity.

China does not lack entrepreneurs. It does not lack technical talent, business formation, or global ambition. The real challenge is access.

Over the past several years, China’s entrepreneurial base has continued to expand. New enterprise formation has increased, college-graduate entrepreneurship has grown, and Chinese companies have become more active in international expansion. At the same time, foreign venture capital participation in China-related startup financing has declined sharply.

Chinese founders are becoming more ambitious and more global, but their access to international investors, mentors, startup ecosystems, and overseas market opportunities is becoming more difficult.

For Chinese entrepreneurs, building a strong product is no longer enough. To compete globally, they need investor readiness, international visibility, cross-border market knowledge, and trusted access to global capital networks. This is where Peachscore can play an important role.

China’s Entrepreneurial Base Is Expanding

China remains one of the world’s largest sources of new business formation. The number of newly established enterprises increased from 8.325 million in 2022 to 9.5 million in 2025, representing a growth of about 14.1%. On a daily basis, average new enterprise formation rose from approximately 22,800 new enterprises per day in 2022 to 26,000 per day in 2025.

This shows that China’s entrepreneurial engine remains active. Even in a slower macroeconomic environment, new businesses are still being created at massive scale.

China’s graduate talent pool is also growing. The total number of college graduates increased from 10.76 million in 2022 to 12.22 million in 2025, a rise of roughly 13.6%. More importantly, the number of college-graduate entrepreneurs grew even faster, from 301,300 people in 2022 to 378,800 people in 2025. That represents growth of about 25.7%.

This suggests that young founder activity is rising faster than the overall graduate population. China is not only producing more graduates; it is producing more graduates who are willing to start companies.

However, a large founder base does not automatically translate into global competitiveness. Many early-stage entrepreneurs still lack exposure to international fundraising standards, global investor expectations, overseas market-entry strategy, and the storytelling style required to communicate with global capital.

Chinese Companies Are Becoming More Global

China’s outbound direct investment, or ODI, also shows that Chinese companies are increasingly looking beyond the domestic market. China's ODI increased from $146.53 billion in 2022 to $174.4 billion in 2025. That is an increase of about $27.87 billion, or roughly 19.0% over the period.

This growth suggests that Chinese companies are still actively seeking international expansion, overseas assets, cross-border partnerships, and access to global markets.

The sector breakdown is even more revealing. Manufacturing and technology, media, and telecom (TMT) combined increased from 17.0% of China’s ODI in 2022 to 22.4% in 2025. In dollar terms, manufacturing and TMT-related outbound investment rose from roughly $24.9 billion to about $39.1 billion, an increase of approximately 56.8%.

This shift matters because it suggests that China’s outbound expansion is becoming more technology-driven. The next generation of Chinese global companies may not be traditional exporters or trading firms. They may come from artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, enterprise software, consumer technology, robotics, cross-border e-commerce, supply chain technology, and other innovation-driven sectors.

For these founders, global expansion requires more than simply selling overseas. They need to understand global market positioning, international customer acquisition, venture capital expectations, compliance, partnerships, and investor communication.

Foreign VC Participation Is Declining

Although China’s entrepreneurial base is growing, access to foreign venture capital has become more difficult.

From 2022 to 2025, total China VC funding declined from $130.76 billion to $108.21 billion, a decrease of about 17.2%. This indicates that China’s venture capital market has cooled from earlier highs, but it remains large. Total VC funding stayed above $100 billion throughout the period.

The sharper decline was in foreign VC participation. Foreign VC total funding fell from $41.67 billion in 2022 to $11.49 billion in 2025, a decline of about 72.4%. This shows that foreign investors are deploying significantly less capital into China-related startup opportunities.

Foreign VCs’ share of total China VC funding declined from 31.9% in 2022 to 10.6% in 2025. In other words, foreign capital went from representing almost one-third of China’s VC funding to just over one-tenth. The issue is not simply that China’s VC market has cooled. The bigger issue is that international capital has become a much smaller part of the startup financing ecosystem.

The decline was also visible at the deal level. Foreign VC deal count dropped from 600 deals in 2022 to 225 deals in 2025, a decrease of 62.5%. Average foreign VC deal size also declined from approximately $69.45 million per deal to $51.07 million per deal. This suggests that foreign investors are not only doing fewer deals; they are also writing smaller checks. For Chinese entrepreneurs, which creates a more selective and competitive fundraising environment.

The challenge for founders is not simply whether capital exists. The challenge is whether they can access the right global investors, communicate their value clearly, and prove that their business can scale beyond China.

Global Expansion Is Still Dominated by Large Enterprises

Another important issue is that outbound investment remains highly concentrated among larger companies.

According to the data, large enterprises, including central state-owned enterprises, major local SOEs, and leading private companies, account for approximately 70% to 80% of total ODI value. Medium-sized enterprises account for around 10% to 15%. Small and micro enterprises, startups, and individual entrepreneurs account for less than 5%.

This creates a structural mismatch. China is producing millions of new enterprises and hundreds of thousands of college-graduate entrepreneurs, yet startups and smaller businesses still represent only a very small share of outbound investment activity. China’s global expansion is growing, but the benefits of that expansion remain concentrated among larger players.

This does not mean smaller founders lack ambition. It means they often lack the same level of institutional support, international credibility, cross-border networks, and capital access that larger enterprises can rely on when expanding globally.

What This Means for Founders: Three Practical Gaps

This concentration creates three practical barriers for Chinese entrepreneurs who want to access global investors and international markets.

The first is the education gap. Many founders understand their products and local markets, but they may not fully understand how the global startup ecosystem works. International fundraising requires a different language: market sizing, traction, unit economics, defensibility, valuation logic, investor updates, and scalable go-to-market strategy. Without this knowledge, even strong founders may struggle to communicate effectively with global investors.

The second is the mentorship gap. Compared with founders in more mature startup ecosystems, many Chinese entrepreneurs have less access to experienced founders, global operators, venture partners, and international startup mentors. Global expansion is difficult to learn from theory alone. Founders need guidance from people who have built, funded, scaled, or operated companies across markets.

The third is the investor access gap. As foreign VC participation declines, Chinese founders face a more difficult path to international capital. They need more than a list of investors. They need credibility, warm introductions, global visibility, and the ability to present their companies in a format that international investors recognize.

These three gaps explain why a platform like Peachscore can create value.

How We Help Chinese Founders Close the Gap

At Peachscore, we believe the next generation of Chinese entrepreneurs does not only need more capital. They need global investor access, stronger investor readiness, international credibility, and the infrastructure required to scale beyond China. This is the gap Peachscore is built to address.

Global Investor Access and Fundraising Readiness

As foreign VC participation in China declines, many Chinese founders face a harder path to international capital. A strong product or a large domestic market is no longer enough. Founders need to be discoverable by the right investors, prepared for international due diligence, and able to present their companies in a way that global capital can understand.

Investor access is the first and most important layer of our platform. Through Peachscore, founders can gain exposure to 30,000+ investors and funding partners, participate in Demo Days, pitch to venture funds, access investor matchmaking, and receive fundraising support designed around their stage, sector, and growth goals. Our accelerator also provides potential funding opportunities of up to $2 million through Peachscore Capital and related funding channels.

For Chinese entrepreneurs, this matters because global fundraising is often a visibility and credibility problem. Many founders may have strong technology, strong execution, or deep insight into the Chinese market, but still struggle to enter the global investor conversation. They may not have the right introductions, investor-ready materials, legal structure, market narrative, or proof points that international investors expect. Peachscore helps turn that process into a more structured pathway.

Peachscore is not proposing an untested model. Our broader ecosystem already connects more than 150,000 startups across 100+ countries, with startups in the ecosystem collectively raising more than US$10 billion. This gives Chinese founders and ecosystem partners a way to tap into existing global infrastructure rather than building international access from zero.

A major part of this pathway is our partnership with Dealum. Dealum is one of the world’s leading deal flow and collaboration platforms for angel investor groups and early-stage investors. It helps investors manage pipelines, evaluate startups, track applications, organize communication, and streamline due diligence.

Through this partnership, Peachscore is not only offering informal networking. We are helping founders enter the investor infrastructure that investors already use to discover, screen, and review startup opportunities. This is especially valuable for Chinese founders looking beyond their existing networks. Instead of relying only on cold emails, local relationships, or one-time introductions, founders can gain visibility in a more organized global deal flow environment. The Peachscore + Dealum ecosystem helps startups become easier for investors to find, evaluate, and understand.

From Idea Stage to Series A Readiness

We support founders across the full startup lifecycle, from idea stage to Series A. This is important because many promising founders are not fully investor-ready when they first begin thinking globally.

Some are still validating an idea. Some have an MVP but limited traction. Others may already have revenue in China but need help adapting their business model, pitch, entity structure, or go-to-market strategy for international markets.

Peachscore provides a pathway through that journey: idea validation, market research, customer discovery, business model development, pitch deck improvement, AI-powered startup assessment, investor readiness, mentorship, Demo Day exposure, investor introductions, fundraising support, and seed-to-Series A readiness.

The need for this type of support is already visible in our own startup data. Based on data from more than 20,000 startups in the Peachscore accelerator platform, investment is the top stated need, with 30% of startups looking for funding support. Other major needs include networking and hiring, customer and resources, and education and guidance. This shows that founders are not only looking for money. They are looking for the full support system around fundraising: investor relationships, team-building, customer access, operational resources, market knowledge, and strategic guidance.

Access to investors only matters if founders are ready to use that access. This is why Peachscore combines investor exposure with AI-powered startup intelligence. Our platform provides AI-powered startup assessment, investor readiness analysis, pitch deck analysis, market insights, competitive benchmarking, go-to-market strategy support, personalized growth recommendations, and investor matching.

These tools include 15+ AI-powered reports, benchmarking against more than 600,000 companies, and analysis across 900+ investor-focused business, market, product, and execution metrics. For Chinese founders, this can be especially useful because a company that performs well in China still needs to translate its story for global investors. Founders need to explain why the product can work internationally, how customer acquisition will change in another market, what the competitive landscape looks like outside China, and why the business can scale across borders.

Peachscore’s data-driven analysis helps turn a local startup story into a global investor narrative.

Building Credibility Through Partners and Resources

Credibility is one of the most important parts of global fundraising. Investors rarely evaluate a startup only by product quality. They also look at the team, advisors, partners, infrastructure, legal readiness, and ecosystem around the company.

Peachscore helps founders build that credibility through our institutional and partner ecosystem. Our network includes partners across venture capital, education, startup services, incorporation, cloud infrastructure, customer tools, and business operations, including Dealum, Plug and Play, Loyola Marymount University, HubSpot, GetProven, Stripe Atlas, AWS, Carta, Zendesk, and other startup infrastructure providers.

This partner layer matters for Chinese founders because international expansion requires more than ambition. A founder entering the U.S. or another overseas market may need company incorporation, cap table management, investor documents, cloud infrastructure, AI tools, legal services, tax support, hiring, sales systems, customer support, and market-entry resources. These are not small administrative details. They are part of becoming investor-ready.

Through GetProven and Peachscore’s vendor and perks marketplace, we give founders access to practical startup resources across accounting, financing, taxation, marketing, sales, legal and audit, HR and payroll, IT and software, data research, customer support, team expansion, and market-entry services. These resources help reduce the operational friction that often prevents early-stage companies from becoming scalable and fundable.

Stripe Atlas is one example of how we support cross-border readiness. For Chinese founders targeting U.S. investors, company structure matters. A clean incorporation path, investor-friendly documentation, and a clear legal framework can make fundraising easier. Through Stripe Atlas and other partner resources, Peachscore helps founders address the basic infrastructure needed to operate and raise capital internationally.

Education and mentorship are also part of investor readiness. Peachscore provides a 12-week startup curriculum, daily live mentorship, weekly one-on-one growth sessions, monthly live workshops, and pitch practice. The program provides more than 520 mentorship hours per year and gives founders access to mentors, operators, investors, and industry experts who can help them refine their business model, improve their pitch, validate customers, prepare for fundraising, and evaluate market-entry strategy.

For Chinese founders, this can reduce the learning curve of entering global markets. Many founders understand China’s domestic market very well, but international expansion requires a different playbook. They need to understand overseas customer acquisition, international pricing, investor communication, compliance, partnership development, and cross-border growth strategy. Peachscore helps founders learn these skills while giving them channels to test and present their companies internationally.

Collaboration Opportunities in China

Peachscore can also support Chinese universities, government agencies, innovation parks, large corporations, and investors. This is important because China’s innovation ecosystem extends far beyond individual founders. Universities, research labs, economic development zones, science parks, industrial clusters, large enterprises, and corporate venture teams all play important roles in entrepreneurship, technology commercialization, and international expansion.

For universities, Peachscore can help turn entrepreneurial talent and research output into globally fundable companies. Our platform can support student founders, researchers, technology transfer offices, university incubators, and entrepreneurship centers through startup assessment, market validation, pitch preparation, investor readiness tools, mentorship, Demo Days, and global investor exposure. This is especially relevant for leading universities such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, as well as regional universities that are building innovation programs and local startup ecosystems.

For government agencies and innovation parks, Peachscore can help increase the global visibility of regional startup ecosystems. Local governments and economic development zones often want to attract investment, support founders, commercialize technology, and connect local companies with international markets. We can support these goals through ecosystem mapping, startup assessments, accelerator programs, investor showcases, cross-border Demo Days, and global mentorship.

For large corporations, Peachscore can support startup scouting, open innovation, technology sourcing, corporate venture capital, innovation challenges, and industry-specific accelerator programs. This can help corporations identify emerging technologies, discover startup partners, monitor market trends, and build relationships with founders inside and outside China.

For investors, Peachscore can provide access to a broader pool of startup opportunities, structured startup data, founder readiness insights, and cross-border deal flow.

These use cases create concrete collaboration opportunities in China. Universities can use Peachscore to support student founder programs and research commercialization. Government agencies and innovation parks can use Peachscore to showcase regional startups to global investors and build cross-border accelerator programs. Large corporations can use Peachscore to identify startups, source technologies, and build open innovation programs. Founders can use Peachscore to prepare for fundraising, access global investors, and build the infrastructure needed to scale internationally.

In this sense, Peachscore is not simply a fundraising platform. We are building a global startup access platform that helps founders become discoverable, credible, and fundable by combining investor access, Dealum-powered deal flow infrastructure, AI-driven startup intelligence, partner credibility, vendor resources, mentorship, education, and global ecosystem visibility.

For Chinese entrepreneurs, the goal is not only to start companies. The goal is to build companies that global investors can understand, evaluate, and support. Peachscore provides a structured pathway from idea stage to Series A readiness, helping founders move from local innovation to international opportunity.

Conclusion: From Local Formation to Global Readiness

China’s entrepreneurial base is expanding, but global investor access is becoming more difficult. New enterprise formation, college-graduate entrepreneurship, and outbound investment are all growing, while foreign VC funding, foreign VC deal count, and foreign VC’s share of China’s total VC market have declined sharply. The next stage of growth will not only depend on building strong products or serving the domestic market. It will depend on becoming globally fundable, globally visible, and globally connected.

At Peachscore, we believe Chinese founders should not have to build global access alone. Through investor access, Dealum-powered deal flow infrastructure, AI-driven startup assessment, Demo Days, partner credibility, university-backed education, mentorship, GetProven marketplace resources, and cross-border startup infrastructure, we help founders build the credibility and connections needed to compete internationally.

For Chinese entrepreneurs, the opportunity is not just to launch companies. It is to build companies that can raise capital, access global partners, enter international markets, and scale beyond China. Peachscore can help make that transition possible.

Sources and References

Some VC-related figures in this article are based on author analysis of a company-provided VC dataset, supported by the public market references listed below.

Official China Economic and Business Formation Data

1.National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS)
Used for China macroeconomic indicators, GDP growth, enterprise formation, and related national economic statistics.
Website: https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/

2.China Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security / Ministry of Education
Used for college graduate population and graduate entrepreneurship-related data.
Website: https://www.mohrss.gov.cn/
Website: https://www.moe.gov.cn/

China Outbound Direct Investment Data

3.Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (MOFCOM)
Used for China outbound direct investment (ODI), overseas business activity, and foreign trade cooperation statistics.
Website: https://english.mofcom.gov.cn/

4.EY China — China Outbound Investment Reports
Used for China outbound investment trends, ODI sector breakdown, and overseas expansion analysis.
Website: https://www.ey.com/en_cn

5.HKTDC Research — China Outbound Investment Data
Used as supporting reference for China ODI historical data and outbound investment trend analysis.
Website: https://research.hktdc.com/

China VC Funding and Private Market Data

6.CVSource / ChinaVenture — 2025 Annual China VC/PE Market Report
Used as supporting reference for China’s overall VC/PE market trends, fundraising activity, investment activity, and private capital market conditions.
https://m.chinaventure.com.cn/report/1005-20260119-1830.html

7.36Kr — 2025 Annual VC/PE Market Report
Used as supporting reference for China’s VC/PE market environment, market slowdown, fundraising trends, and investment restructuring.
https://36kr.com/p/3642043805601664

8.GlobalData — China VC Funding Value Drops 36% YoY During January–August 2025
Used as supporting reference for recent China VC funding trends in USD terms.
https://www.globaldata.com/china-vc-funding-value-drops-36-yoy-even-as-deal-volume-rises-3-during-january-august-2025-finds-globaldata/

Foreign VC and Dollar Fund Participation

9.36Kr — Dollar Funds in China’s Primary Market Shrunk by 84% Over Five Years
Used as a key reference for the decline in foreign VC / dollar fund participation in China’s primary market from 2021 to 2025.
https://36kr.com/p/3630647933912069

10.PitchBook — 2024 Greater China Private Capital Breakdown
Used as an international reference for Greater China private capital trends, dollar-denominated investment activity, and broader private market conditions from 2021 to H1 2024.
https://files.pitchbook.com/website/files/pdf/2024_Greater_China_Private_Capital_Breakdown.pdf

11.China Daily Global — Dollar Funds Driving China VC Charge
Used as a supporting reference for recent discussion around dollar funds, foreign capital, and investor sentiment toward China’s venture capital market.
http://www.chinadailyglobal.com/a/202507/23/WS68803552a310ad07b5d91625.html

Author Analysis and Company Data

12.Author analysis based on company-provided VC dataset, 2022–2025
Used for China VC funding, foreign VC funding, foreign VC share of China VC funding, foreign VC deal count, and average foreign VC deal size. Calculations include foreign VC share and average foreign VC deal size based on the dataset.

13. Peachscore Startup Ecosystem Data
Used for Peachscore platform metrics, including startup network size, countries represented, mentor network, investor and ecosystem partner network, and total funding raised by startups within the Peachscore ecosystem.