ZhenFund's Tianyi Qin: Globalization Will Unfold Cautiously in a New Form

By Zhiyan Chen

On March 29, An Yong Waves ("暗涌Waves") published A Globalization Guide for Chinese Founders, breaking down the past, present, and future of Chinese companies going global across specific regions — North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, you can jump over and check out the sections that interest you.

In that piece, we noted that this wave of Chinese corporate globalization stems from the convergence of multiple factors: domestic supply chains, the evolution of internet commerce, and the accumulated expertise of business and technical talent. But there are no shortcuts in going global. Everyone riding this wave must prepare to weather the storms.

During the globalization investment boom of 2023, Qin Tianyi, investment director at ZhenFund, who has long focused on the going-global space, spent most of his time in the Greater Bay Area. "This year, most of my business trips have been by car rather than plane. I live in Shenzhen, and I'm mainly shuttling between Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong." This region has the world's most efficient supply chains, the most innovative engineers and product managers, and the savviest operators. In Qin's view, going global has transformed from a niche topic into a strategic imperative for Chinese companies — and it only took a few short years. This isn't simply because companies are "too squeezed" domestically and have no choice but to expand outward; it's driven by tangible wealth effects. "A lot of people who went global made money, and they're hitting new highs." Behind this lies the market's recognition of Chinese supply chains and talent quality as globally competitive. Qin's investments — including African fintech OPay, global game studio HABBY, innovative home appliance brand DREO for Western markets, and cross-border finance platform QBIT — have all demonstrated competitiveness across different destination countries and industries.

Of course, going global also faces countless challenges. The current complex geopolitical landscape, for instance, keeps both entrepreneurs and investors walking on eggshells. But Qin remains optimistic: "The tide of Chinese companies going global is just beginning, not ending. Globalization won't repeat the old paths; it will unfold cautiously in a new way." Learning to understand and respond to overseas regulation and policy shifts will become a required course for every player in this space.

Below are highlights from Qin Tianyi's perspectives:

1. For all the emphasis on localization in going global, there's a counterintuitive truth: the greatest products are universally global. Coca-Cola, iPhone, Tesla, TikTok, WhatsApp — behind each of these, the best founders found the greatest common denominator of human need. For Chinese entrepreneurs going global, creating another regional hit is no longer novel. Building a truly global product is the goal for our generation of founders and investors.

2. Globalization-focused investing is no longer organized by destination — "investing in local projects in India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East," and so on. It has converged on a single theme: Chinese founders going global.

3. Before the pandemic, ties between China's venture ecosystem and those in Southeast Asia, India, the US, and elsewhere were very close. At that time, Indian or Southeast Asian entrepreneurs, after raising their angel rounds locally, would almost certainly make a trip to China if they were even slightly forward-thinking. Back then, global investing had regional divisions — some investors focused on Southeast Asia, some on India, some on the Middle East. After the pandemic, geographic isolation combined with a flood of dollars meant local funds in these regions raised substantial capital. In this environment, local funds and local entrepreneurs rapidly formed their own ecosystems, which persist today.

4. Since I started investing in the going-global direction in 2018, the most fundamental shift we've observed is the dramatic increase in talent density. At China's top mobile internet companies — ByteDance, Pinduoduo, Alibaba, Tencent — the going-global business is handled by the strongest teams within each company. Tens of thousands of high-potential young professionals in their prime have been dispatched to destination countries. In consumer electronics, it's no longer just the major sellers either. Engineers and product managers from top engineering schools are pouring in to create new product categories. Chinese consumer electronics is no longer merely a byword for cost-performance.

5. I'm from Henan, and I've always felt that Henan's relationship to China mirrors China's relationship to the world. The characteristics are the same: large population, complex and diverse demand, relatively low per-capita consumption, and brutal market competition. For consumer brands, this is the harshest training ground. If you can win here, you'll be highly competitive going out. Joking aside, this might be another angle on the "demographic dividend." In recent years, many consumer brands born in Henan have successfully expanded nationwide and even globally — Mixue Ice Cream & Tea, Pop Mart, Weilong, Guoquan, Balu Spicy Tripe Hot Pot, Shuanghui, Sanquan, Haoxiangni, and others. The reasons behind this parallel what enables Chinese brands to win overseas.

6. Despite years of global e-commerce development and decent penetration rates, the bulk of world trade remains traditional B2B. The more efficient commerce flows represented by Chinese supply chains and cross-border e-commerce still have massive room to reshape global trade. I believe we're still in the early stages of this transformation, not the end — and there's significant disagreement on this point among market participants.

7. Going global means facing many storms. Overseas regulatory and policy environments are often more challenging. Resilience is the most important quality for founders going global. Many of today's success stories involve near-death experiences. In 2018, going-global fintech, and in 2020, Amazon major sellers, both attracted massive attention and investment at the time. Then regulatory environments shifted rapidly, wiping out large numbers of companies. In the years when these sectors fell almost completely off the radar, the most resilient going-global entrepreneurs quietly sailed through. Cash贷 teams that once seemed on the verge of collapse are now fully licensed and compliant, deeply embedded in building local financial infrastructure, highly profitable, and have become LPs for their former investors. Major sellers who saw 95% of revenue vanish overnight from store bans have built new brands with genuine reputation, hitting new highs in sales and profit. Stories like these are common.

8. Many people assume that founding a company in an emerging market doesn't require the same caliber of ability as in China or the US. The opposite is true. While emerging markets may have weaker competitive environments, the absolute demands on a founder's capabilities are actually higher than in mature markets. When market infrastructure is incomplete, founders must themselves compensate for what the environment fails to provide. For example, over the past two years of US dollar rate hikes, many projects profitable in local emerging-market currencies ended up showing losses when converted back to dollars due to sharp local currency depreciation. Or consider that many emerging markets haven't built out road and bridge infrastructure at China's pace, which necessarily constrains the development of logistics and supply chain industries built on top of that infrastructure. And ultimately, achieving capital markets success means scaling the business — which in an emerging market requires higher penetration rates and horizontal expansion capabilities, potentially a much harder task.

Image source: IC photo