It was the first time Lu Zhou had encountered anything so strange: someone was practically begging to give him money, and refusing wasn't an option.
All right, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it wasn't far from the truth.
Under some support policy from the Ministry of Education, university students could receive a loan without interest, and the university would set aside part of its budget to match the funding one-to-one.
For example, if Lu Zhou borrowed a hundred thousand yuan under the policy, the Ministry of Education would provide fifty thousand, and the university would provide the other fifty thousand. The loan would be interest-free for the first year, then accrue a small amount of interest afterward. Either way, the rate would be much lower than a commercial loan-even lower than inflation!
Of course, that didn't mean Lu Zhou could only borrow a hundred thousand.
The university would review his project, along with his application and prototype, to determine the exact loan amount.
Generally, the money wouldn't go into a personal bank account. It would go directly into the company's account, with every expense recorded. That meant he couldn't spend it on a car or a house; until the loan was repaid, it could only be used for the venture itself.
Even with those restrictions, it would be a tremendous help to Lu Zhou. Right now, he was burning through his own money to keep the app running. At the rate its user base was growing, it was doubtful whether his funds would even last until the end of the year.
Registering a company wasn't particularly troublesome, either. An interest-free loan? Why turn down free money?
But there was a problem. Both the School of Mathematics and the Software Institute had faith in this project-or rather, in