The Ex-COO of ‘Chinese Google’ Baidu and blockchain bull Qi Lu has joined Y Combinator (YC) to run the company’s new China-based division, according to a blog post August 14.

Y Combinator –– the major Silicon Valley-based entrepreneurial accelerator that funded such startups as Dropbox, Airbnb, Coinbase, Reddit, among others –– announced that is has officially entered the Chinese market, launching a new division of the company there.

The company also announced that the new division will be launched and run by ex-Baidu exec Qi. In the announcement, YC president Sam Altman said he expected Qi to “build a long-term local organization that will combine the best of Silicon Valley and China and create a lot of innovation.” Altman added:

“Qi embodies all of these values, and China has been an important missing piece of our puzzle — the entrepreneurial energy and talent there is an amazing force.”

In an interview published today, August 15, in local media outlet 36Kr, Qi revealed that he is “optimistic about blockchain technology,” noting among its benefits the protection of privacy and data integrity. Qi also underlines that “blockchain technology may bring innovation in the long-term incentive mechanism.”

As Cointelegraph reported in April of this year, Baidu had launched a blockchain-based image rights protection platform called Totem.

Previously, this winter, the largest online retailer in China JD.com revealed its plans to launch a blockchain startup incubator “to build new businesses and create and test real-world applications of their technologies at scale.”