A Swiss mentor has put a young scientist on track to contribute to global innovation with his bionic vision startup.
The Zhongguancun Haidian Pioneer Park in Beijing is a business incubator set up in 1989 to nurture startups with cutting-edge innovation capabilities so that they can contribute to global innovation. Since then it has become a hub of young Chinese who have returned home after completing their higher studies abroad to start their own innovative businesses, with growing international links.
Liu Min is one of them. A master ’s in automation science, Liu is the protégé of Professor Tobi Delbruck, an American neuromorphic engineer at ETH Zurich, a public research university in Switzerland, and son of Max Delbrück, the 1969 Nobel laureate in physiology/medicine. When he was applying to do his doctorate, Liu chose to do it under Prof. Delbruck since he found the latter’s work in dynamic vision sensor technology, involving biology, circuits, and algorithms, fascinating. His application to research under Prof. Delbruck was accepted and in 2016, he began studying the technology at ETH Zurich under his mentor.
After receiving his Ph.D and coming back to China in 2023, Liu started a company called DVSense (Beijing) Technology with a partner. The company describes its objective as being “committed to creating human-comparable vision solutions to help intelligent manufacturing, consumer electronics, humanoid robots and autonomous driving industries, leading the new revolution in computer vision.”
The core technology of the company comes from the dynamic visual sensor (DVS) invented by Prof. Delbruck. “This technology is very promising, and research on it is absent in China,” Liu said, explaining why he wanted to start a bionic vision business in China. “I think bringing this technology to China will create many significant application scenarios and facilitate its implementation and commercialization domestically.”
Liu Min at the 15th Suzhou Entrepreneurship Week for International Elites in July 2023.
Learning the Ropes
While Liu was doing research in Zurich, MiraclePlus, an accelerator for startups and a venture capital investment firm, realized the potential of the technology and contacted him. After his return to China, he participated in a camp for startups organized by MiraclePlus, where he learned the know-how to start a business, like how to do marketing and get financing.
When the camp ended, his project was chosen from over 8,000 ones presented to investors through roadshows. It was a hectic time. “Sometimes, I would meet five investment organizations in a single day, explaining to them things like what kind of technology we have, who are the members of our team, and what problems we want to solve,” Liu told China Today.
At first, the investors didn’t care much for what he was proposing to do. “Initially, we planned to use the technology for robotic navigation, but the investors thought the application scenario was too limited.” Luckily, he met a friend who is in the field of industrial vision, and Liu realized his technology could be used to help industrial production.
Based on this and feedback from the investors, Liu revised his plan, gradually forming a clear idea of how to commercialize it. For nearly a month, he kept meeting potential investors and two months later, received an angel round of early-stage funding from investors.
This year, Liu visited Prof. Delbruck to tell him about the progress, and his doctoral supervisor said he was very proud of the fledgling company.
On his WeChat, Liu shared a selfie taken with the professor during the visit. You can see from it that despite his high science talent, Liu is not good at posing for the camera and his jaw is missing in the frame. But his shining eyes more than make up for that.
From Researcher to Marketeer
For Liu, running a startup as its CEO is a sea change. Meeting the investors is the biggest challenge for him. “I don’t think I’m good at expressing myself. But to get financing, I have to talk with investors about my technology and vision,” he said. “The change of status from a researcher to an entrepreneur was a challenge to me since I’m not good at it.”
Though plagued by anxiety and pressure, his traits as a scientist whose work teaches him to persevere and try to resolve problems made him eventually understand the three most important tasks of a CEO – finding the right people to work for the organization, the money to run the organization, and the direction the organization should take. Finding money is the first step to start the work. “The process of persuading investors is like learning a new technology,” Liu said. “I told myself that I was learning technologies that I knew nothing about before.”
Being a founder also means shouldering more responsibilities. When Liu was a student, what he needed to think was only about his own studies. But now as the head of a company, he needs to consider his 20-odd employees each time he makes a decision. “Now, much of my work has little to do with the specific technological aspects. Instead, I have to think of the bigger picture and play my role as a manager,” Liu told China Today.
DVSense now has a product called DVS Cam, a new camera with a new type of high-speed bionic eye sensor technology. Highly sensitive to change in light, Dvs Cam is like a pro version of the traditional camera that can capture objects in just one microsecond and work in more extreme conditions. In other words, it creates highly sophisticated eyes for machines.
“Our core technology is the DVS. Globally, there are only about five or six companies that can make chips for DVS and basically all of them are run by former students of Prof. Delbruck,” Liu said.
According to Liu, the camera is now mainly used to detect defects in goods on the production line, like fiber optic cable. When there is a defect in the product, it will reflect a different brightness of light to the camera, which is transmitted to the screen in real time, and the workers locate the defect and rectify it.
Apart from this scenario, Liu is also hoping to apply the technology to other fields in the future. For example, his company is already cooperating with a higher education institution in the R&D of robot navigation. “Currently, we are focusing on its application in the industry. In the future, as we accumulate more technologies, we hope to enter the field of robots and self-driving vehicles,” Liu said.
Liu Min takes a selfie with his mentor Professor Tobi Delbruck on March 27, 2024.
A Sense of Home-Coming
The DVSense office moved to the Haidian Pioneer Park this year because it gives Liu a sense of belonging, since the founders of the other startups here also studied abroad. Besides, the park provides favorable policies for startups.
That has been a huge support. The park, for instance, helps its enterprises apply for government subsidies and also to apply for higher titles that will bring more opportunities, like “national high-tech enterprise.”
“The Haidian Pioneer Park has a lot of first-hand information regarding policies, which it shares with us in a timely manner so that we don’t miss the deadline for applying.” Besides, the park has a whole set of procedures that saves startups the trouble of paperwork while applying for benefits.
The park authorities say they provide comprehensive guidance to the enterprises by integrating various resources. This includes policy consultation, management consultation, financing assistance, talent recruitment, and more. The park also offers preferential office space and assists with handling business registration, taxation, intellectual property agency, and other related matters.
There are similar parks across China. Governments at different levels have rolled out various policies to support returned overseas Chinese students in starting businesses and in 2009, a support program was launched for them. As early as in 2000, Beijing set up an award for outstanding contribution to innovation and entrepreneurship by overseas returnees.
While acknowledging the fierce competition, Liu says one of the greatest advantages of starting a business in China is the huge market. “Today, no matter whether in Beijing or in other places in China, the government’s efforts to attract overseas talents have ratcheted up significantly, providing a lot of tangible support,” he said.
