ABC Rolls Out Shanghai’s First Special Tech Guarantee Business for Early-stage and Small Sci-tech Firms

The brain-like intelligence track is a priority future sector in Shanghai’s modern industrial system. A host of start-ups with cutting-edge technologies have settled in business incubators to press ahead with technological breakthroughs. Nevertheless, seed-stage sci-tech enterprises feature heavy R&D spending and low asset bases. They have not yet entered the investment window for venture capital and lack traditional collateral, making financing difficulties a major bottleneck holding back faster technological iteration.

Recently, a reporter from the Shanghai Securities News learned that ABC Shanghai Branch has acted on Shanghai’s policy of coordinating fiscal and financial resources to boost technological innovation. Leveraging the city’s special guarantee mechanism of “Incubator-Loan Coordination”, the branch teamed up with Shanghai Financing Guarantee Center and the “Intelligent Brain Workshop” incubator at Changyang Creative Valley to deliver targeted financial support for early-stage and small sci-tech firms. It has launched Shanghai’s first special tech guarantee business for such enterprises, opening the “last mile” of financing for hard-tech start-ups.

Shanghai Lingzhi Artificial Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd., based in the “Intelligent Brain Workshop” at Changyang Creative Valley, is a representative incubated start-up in the brain-like intelligence sector. Boasting a strong core technical team, the company has poured most of its resources into R&D since its founding. Currently still in the technology research phase, the firm has no traditional collateral and limited access to conventional financing channels, facing capital shortages that slow down continuous technological upgrading.

After learning about the company’s financing needs, Yangpu Sub-branch of ABC Shanghai Branch broke away from traditional credit evaluation logic. It conducted on-site due diligence together with the “Intelligent Brain Workshop” incubator, focusing on the scientific research capacity of the core team, technological barriers and long-term growth prospects to assess the firm’s innovation value. Relying on Shanghai’s special tech guarantee program for early-stage and small sci-tech enterprises, the bank granted credit enhancement via government-backed financing guarantees under the “Incubator-Loan Coordination” batch package and moderately raised risk tolerance to resolve the financing bottleneck caused by insufficient collateral. Following multiple rounds of negotiations and financing plan refinement, a RMB 1 million loan was successfully disbursed, earmarked for the firm’s R&D on brain-like intelligence technologies.

The “Incubator-Loan Coordination” business marks a key practice of ABC Shanghai Branch and Shanghai Financing Guarantee Center in rolling out the special tech guarantee program for early-stage and small sci-tech enterprises. The program mainly supports incubated small, medium and micro sci-tech firms that meet the following criteria: established within five years, falling under Shanghai’s “2+3+6+6” modern industrial system, settled in incubators, and spun off from university research achievements.

Eligible incubated enterprises can be exempted from the unlimited joint and several personal liability guarantee imposed on their actual controllers in line with policy requirements, further lifting risk tolerance for early-stage innovation entities. Meanwhile, policy tools including municipal and district-level interest and fee subsidies as well as re-lending for sci-tech innovation are layered on top to effectively cut the comprehensive financing cost for early-stage tech firms.

Beyond “Incubator-Loan Coordination”, ABC has built a full-lifecycle financing system for tech firms with two additional special guarantee batch packages: “Investment-Loan Coordination” and “Sci-Tech Loan Coordination”. The “Investment-Loan Coordination” package provides credit support for start-ups and growth-stage enterprises backed by venture capital institutions. The “Sci-Tech Loan Coordination” service is granted based on sci-tech evaluation metrics such as Shanghai Sci-Tech Credit Score, intellectual property rights and R&D intensity. Together, they form a tiered portfolio of technology finance products.

ABC Shanghai Branch stated that it will continue to implement the municipal arrangement of fiscal-financial synergy for sci-tech innovation. The bank will deepen government-bank cooperation, step up data application, accelerate the conversion of data into assets, and explore customized service models tailored to early-stage sci-tech enterprises. Powered by digital intelligence, ABC will channel credit resources precisely toward seed-stage and start-up hard-tech firms. It will help Shanghai build a tiered, targeted technology finance service system, enabling more innovative enterprises to break through growth barriers and thrive in the city.

Source: Shanghai Securities News