Jeff Wu: Where Silicon Valley Meets China’s Startup Ecosystem

Jeff Wu is the China Partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that has backed companies including SpaceX, OpenAI, and Airbnb.

Operating across North America, Asia, and Europe, Pegasus has built a global platform that connects startups with corporates, investors, and markets — positioning itself not only as a source of capital, but as infrastructure for cross-border growth.

At the center of that system, Wu focuses on one of the most complex intersections in today’s innovation landscape: the relationship between China’s domestic ecosystem and the global market.

“We are building a platform where the world meets China, and China meets the global market,” Wu says.

From Building to Backing Founders

Wu began his career as an entrepreneur, founding a cloud computing company, before taking on roles at Oracle and IBM.

Working across both startups and enterprise environments, he developed a clear understanding of what it takes for a company to move from idea to commercialization — and eventually scale across markets. That perspective naturally led him to venture capital.

“I saw how difficult it can be for great technology to reach the global market… that made me passionate about helping founders scale. Venture capital became the natural extension,” he says.

Today, that experience shapes how he evaluates early-stage companies. For Wu, potential is largely determined by how founders define their market from day one — whether they think globally from the outset. It’s a strategic decision that influences everything from product design to growth.

“You have to think globally from the beginning. Even if the idea starts small, the ambition cannot be small,” he says.

A New Model: Venture Capital as a Service

Pegasus Tech Ventures operates through a model known as Venture Capital as a Service (VCaaS) — positioned between traditional venture capital and corporate venture capital (CVC).

Pegasus manages capital on behalf of global corporations, connecting them with startups aligned with their business priorities. For these corporate partners, the model provides access to vetted deal flow, emerging technologies, and innovation opportunities without the need to build an internal venture arm.

Startups, in turn, gain access to a network of corporate partners across industries. Unlike traditional corporate venture capital, where companies often work closely with a single investor, founders in this model can engage with multiple partners at once.

“There is a space between traditional VC and CVC. We operate in that space,” Wu says.

Startup World Cup and the Distribution of Innovation

Pegasus also runs initiatives like the Startup World Cup, a global platform connecting startups with investors, corporates, and markets.

While framed as a competition, its function is closer to infrastructure — creating access points between founders and global markets. The initiative spans events across over 60 countries and more than 100 regions, attracting thousands of startup applications each year and culminating in a global final in Silicon Valley.

“Today, we see two parallel paths for innovation. A new generation of Chinese founders is moving beyond a domestic-only focus, designing their businesses from day one to serve the global market with an international mindset,” Wu says.

Innovation is no longer geographically concentrated — it is distributed. Through platforms like Startup World Cup, founders from Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and beyond are able to access capital, partners, and global visibility — often without relocating.

China as a Parallel System

Wu describes today’s innovation landscape as divided across two major systems: a global market and a China-centric one — each with its own infrastructure, platforms, and regulatory environment.

These systems operate in parallel, with companies expanding between them by building international teams, entering new markets, and structuring parts of their business through separate international entities.

“The Chinese market operates as a distinct system — but not a separate one. Companies can grow in one and expand into the other,” he says.

This dynamic is shaping a new generation of Chinese founders who build for international markets from the outset, reflected in their branding, products, and overall direction. While the founders and core technology originate in China, these companies are designed to operate globally.

Bridging Structural Differences

The dynamic is not one-directional. While Chinese companies are expanding globally, international startups are equally drawn to China — attracted by its scale, advanced supply chains, and depth of engineering talent.

Entering the Chinese market, however, involves more than ambition. Companies must navigate a system with its own regulatory structure, business culture, and decision-making dynamics.

“Success in the Chinese market requires more than just ambition; it requires a deep integration into the local ecosystem and finding the right domestic partners who truly understand the landscape," Wu says.

Government involvement is built into the system, shaping both opportunity and risk. Market access, partnerships, and growth often depend on understanding how to operate within it.

For firms like Pegasus, this complexity becomes part of the value proposition — helping companies navigate local regulations, build the right partnerships, and establish a foothold in the Chinese market.

The Next Wave of Innovation

Looking ahead, Wu sees the next phase of innovation emerging across several key areas — particularly artificial intelligence, new energy, and deep technologies such as quantum computing and biotech.

He also points to financial infrastructure as an area with significant long-term potential.

For Wu, fintech is not a saturated space, but an unfinished system. Despite rapid advances elsewhere, the core systems of global finance have seen little fundamental change over the past decade.

“Fintech is difficult — it takes time. It’s not something you can disrupt in a few years. But once it happens, it will reshape the entire system,” he says.

In his view, the real shift will come from the convergence of finance with emerging technologies — from AI to blockchain — reshaping how money moves and how value is created globally.

“The next wave of innovation will come from how technologies come together, not from one breakthrough alone,” Wu says.