Westlake University

Westlake University is a research institution in China that has incubated and spun out multiple AI and biotech startups, positioning itself as a launchpad for translating academic research into venture-backed companies . The university's labs have served as direct foundations for commercial ventures: Lijia Ma leads the Functional Genomics and Bioinformatics Laboratory, which underpinned Westlake Valley Intelligent Pharma ; Zhenzhong Lan joined in 2020 to head the Deep Learning Laboratory, and from that lab emerged Xinchen AI in July 2021 . Xinchen AI, focused on large language model research and applications, has since attracted repeated strategic investment from BlueRun Ventures . The pattern suggests Westlake University operates with an unusually tight coupling between its research groups and the startup formation pipeline.