Microsoft to help boost growth of Chinese startups

US tech giant Microsoft Corp will work with more Chinese tech startups to boost their growth through its local accelerators, said its top executive.

Microsoft Accelerator Beijing will screen startup candidates mainly in five vertical markets, healthcare, government service, finance service, manufacturing and smart city.

"New technology and new applications powered by innovation are leading the digital transformation, which is disrupting traditional businesses profoundly," said Alain Crozier, Microsoft Corporate Vice-President and Chairman and CEO of Greater China Region.

With accelerators based in China, its cloud computing service Microsoft Azure nourished a thriving local ecosystem of startups to further drive digital transformation, he said.

He was speaking on fifth anniversary of Microsoft Accelerator Beijing and Demo Day for the ninth batch of graduate startups.

In the past five years, nine batches of 156 startups have graduated from Microsoft Accelerator Beijing, with a total valuation of over 50 billion yuan ($7.3 billion).

According to the company, over 90 percent of the 156 alumni completed next round of fund raising. Their products and services cover over two million enterprise customers and 500 million individual clients in China. Three of them were listed on China's start-up board - National Equities Exchange and Quotations, and 13 exited through mergers and acquisitions.

China's cloud-computing industry is predicted to top 430 billion yuan by 2019, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in an announcement. Back in 2015, the scale stood at 150 billion yuan.