(Yicai) March 26 -- Shanghai has started sign-up procedures for the latest "Startup in Shanghai," an annual international innovation and entrepreneurship competition held for over a decade that serves as an important platform for the city to discover and cultivate small and medium-sized technology firms and build an innovation ecosystem.

This year's event will continue to lean towards hard-tech projects, focus on supporting future industries, upgrade the empowerment system for participating companies, and welcome science and technology innovation projects from around the world, Huang Lihong, director of the Shanghai Technology Innovation Center, said at a launch conference.

Since 2012, the contest has attracted nearly 70,000 sci-tech innovation companies, of which 94 have gone public. As an important venue for discovering and cultivating tech firms, the awarding process is more inclined towards hard tech enterprises and projects.

Since last year, the competition has allowed teams and companies that have not yet been registered or were newly set up to take part in the event to help projects still in the idea stage get approved to enter the market in advance.

Some 453 projects from unregistered companies entered the competition last year, while 66 award-winning teams had registered and established enterprises as of Dec. 31, according to data from the Shanghai Technology Innovation Center.

Yixin Technology, a startup that designs, develops, and industrializes electronic design automation software for the new-generation 2.5- and 3-dimensional stacked chips, won the first prize in the team category, the top award, last year without having been registered as a company when it signed up for the contest. It settled in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Science City during the launch of this year's event.

The decision to settle in Zhangjiang was driven by the area's solid foundation in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain, Zhao Yi, founder of Yixin Technology, told Yicai. "There are many chip design companies in Zhangjiang, so this environment surrounded by customers can significantly shorten the path from research and development to the market for our products."

Long-term stable policy and financial support are indispensable for SMEs that are in the growth stage. According to data provided by the competition's organizers, 32 participants last year obtained equity financing worth a total of CNY2.8 billion (USD404.4 million) from multiple leading venture capital firms.

"For entrepreneurs, the financing environment is an important consideration when choosing a location for their companies," Yu Haitao, founder of Maizhen Electronics Technology, said to Yicai. "Industrial investment funds set up in Shanghai over the past two years are also a factor that attracts companies to settle in the city."

Maizhen Electronics won the Enterprise Excellence Award last year and has since settled in Shanghai's Jiading district, growing into a high-tech enterprise focusing on the R&D and manufacturing of new micro-electro-mechanical system analysis chips and scientific analysis instruments.

The 2026 "Startup in Shanghai" competition will complete participants' qualification verification by June 15. The final round will be held in October.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev