When Greg Phipps, an investment manager with Innovacorp, walked into the offices of the Beijing Development Authority last month, he was struck by the scale model of the Chinese Capital’s industrial park for tech companies, E-town.

The park is bigger than Halifax. The model itself was 30 feet by 15 feet. Phipps took a picture of it with his phone, but it was too large to capture the whole model.

It was a stunning reminder of how vast and active the Chinese tech market is, and of all the opportunity it could offer to Atlantic Canadian companies.

Phipps was in Beijing to pitch some of the startups that Innovacorp has backed and other Nova Scotian companies. The provincial innovation agency has developed ties in Silicon Valley through its investments in startups that have a presence in Northern California, such as the cleantech companies LightSail Energy and the IT firm Oris4.

It is now pursuing a similar strategy with China. Innovacorp has invested in aioTV, which last year sold a 44 percent stake to UTStarcom Holdings Corp. of China. Phipps has developed relationships with the board members UTStarcom appointed to the aioTV board, and used these to gain introductions in China, including a meeting with the Beijing Development Authority. [Disclosure:  Innovacorp is a sponsor of Entrevestor.]

Meeting after his return, Phipps said China is the second-largest venture capital market in the world, yet its startup segment is underdeveloped in relationship to the size of its population and economy. “They’re looking for western technology companies that have Asian expansion strategies with a view to bringing them over,” he said.

Without going into details, Phipps said he received a positive response when he presented summations of the Nova Scotian companies, which included:

• CarbonCure Technologies, whose technology reduces the carbon emitted in the production of concrete blocks. Half the world’s construction expenditure will be in China by 2015, which makes it a natural market for such a company.
• TruLeaf, which is developing a process to grow local produce indoors with virtually no environmental footprint. Its technology would have huge demand in China, given the urbanization of the population and concerns about pollution.
• LiveLenz, which does data analytics for fast food franchisees. Again China is a perfect market as its fast food industry is growing 80 percent annually.
• Equals6, which owns a career-focused social network for students, which could have a huge market in China as 30 percent of the country’s college graduates cannot find work.
• Resolution Optics, which makes real-time microscopes that can be used underwater. Its major early adopter was a Chinese research organization.
• And NewPace Technology Development, whose technology increases the flexibility that telecom companies can offer in texting services on mobile handsets. Its main clients so far are in Europe.

Phipps said he’s spoken to the companies about China since he’s returned. Most are enthusiastic about expansion in Asia but realize the cost involved.

“It’s a huge, huge market and anyone going there needs to ensure they have sufficient capital,” he said.