The right people, in the same room.
Entering China or leaving it, a project moves when the people who can decide it are sitting together. SilkNet finds them, verifies them, gets them into one room — and runs the deal from there on one private record we call the Trail.
Every deal runs on the Trail.
One private timeline, visible to your deal's stakeholders and no one else. Six steps, in this order, on every deal — what sits between them depends on what you brought us.
Introduction
You tell us the project — the generator, the form, or a call. A partner reads it the same day and answers within one working day: yes, no, or who should do this instead.
Your part: One conversationVerified
Every party that will touch the deal is checked at the source — the national enterprise registry for Chinese companies, company houses abroad. Real names, real registrations, real owners.
Your part: NothingNDA
Signed both ways, on the record, before a single name crosses the table. It is the first document on your trail; everything after references it.
Your part: One signatureThe rooms
The people who can decide your project, introduced in the order they need to say yes. We call first, explain the project without your name, and bring you in when the answer is yes.
Your part: Show upExecution
Contracts written to hold where they will be tested. Production, inspection and freight — or diligence, approvals and closing — run by the partner whose name is on it.
Your part: Approve each milestonePaid and closed
Funds move on milestones, held and released as each step is met — never before. The trail closes as a permanent record, and often as the start of a programme.
Your part: ReleaseFor projects where getting it wrong is expensive.
Too serious for the marketplaces, too specific for the Big Four. Six people we recognise the moment they write in — and the first room each of them needs.
The company setting up its first locations
A brand, a restaurant group, a manufacturer — with a plan on paper and no one in the room yet.
The Chinese group that needs its partner abroad
A technology, a factory, a listed group with capacity and a mandate to go outward — and no way to be taken seriously overseas.
The buyer who suspects the number
Years with the same supplier, a price that never quite tracks the material, and a sales office answering the phone.
The acquirer buying plants in China
The data room is clean. The question is what's on the floor, who really owns it, and what the suppliers one tier down know.
The fund or family office
Money that needs a deal run to signature — entity, counsel, bank, escrow — not a report on how one might be.
The board that needs a straight answer
Tariffs broke the landed cost. China done right, China plus one, or moved — with real quotes, not a slide.
Start with what you need.
A seat beside a verified project, a written answer on one supplier, or the people who can move your project — each begins here, and each is priced before we start.
A partner, on the other side of the border.
China projects going out, overseas projects coming in — verified, anonymized until NDA, one open seat each. One mandate is open now.
See the mandates → US$2,500 · refundableThe Supply Chain Check.
One supplier or product line, examined from the registry to the landed cost and written up in ten working days. Credited against your first engagement, or refunded.
See the sample report → The networkThe right people, in the same room.
A market to enter, a company to buy, a chain to move — tell us the project and see the rooms it runs through. A partner answers within one working day.
Tell us the project →Projects looking for their partner. In both directions.
A self-balancing two-wheeler platform is looking for its partner overseas.
An engineering firm with 33 granted patents and two prototype rounds behind a two-wheeler that holds itself upright. The chassis, the control system and the factory network exist. The brand, the home market and the overseas side of the programme are the open seat.
Bringing a project into China?
We work with project owners, industrial parks and local programmes across China — some with subsidies on the table for the right partner. Tell us what you want to build there and we open the first room.
Tell us the projectHold a mandate with us.
A technology, a factory, a product or a company in China that needs its partner overseas — verified, under NDA and serious before you hear their name.
How a mandate worksSeventeen years of rooms we can open.
A project moves when the person who can say yes is in the room. These are the eight kinds of room a China project runs through, what each one decides, and when you need it. We have been walking into them since 2009.
Owners, not sales offices
Across a dozen industries — the person who can sign a price, a production slot and a spec change. A sales office can only relay.
When you need itWhen you need a real number, a firm slot, or a change made without a month of email.Local programmes and parks
District and provincial offices with land, incentives and subsidies to place with the right partner — and the officials who decide which partner that is.
When you need itWhen you are entering, relocating a line, or need an approval that a form cannot get you.Banks, escrow, cross-border money
Accounts that open for foreign capital, funds that move on milestones, capital that can leave China and arrive abroad lawfully.
When you need itWhen money has to cross the border in either direction and the timing matters.PRC, Hong Kong, Singapore, US
Counsel who have closed your deal type before — M&A, JV, licence, entity, trademark — and write contracts that hold in the court that will test them.
When you need itWhen paper has to survive a dispute, not just a signature.Listed groups looking outward
Chinese industrial and technology groups with production capacity, patents and a mandate to go abroad — the holders of the mandates on this site.
When you need itWhen you are a brand or OEM looking for engineering and capacity you cannot build yourself.The tiers below the brand
Second- and third-tier suppliers — the mills, the cell makers, the platers — where the real cost, the real quality and the real risk live.
When you need itWhen you want to know what your supplier does not tell you.Ports, forwarders, customs
On both sides of the Pacific, including brokers who get classification right and routes that move cargo without conventional freight bills.
When you need itWhen landed cost, not factory price, is the number that matters.Institutes and R&D teams
Where prototypes get built and patents get filed — university-linked institutes and the engineering firms that spin out of them.
When you need itWhen the product does not exist yet, or exists and needs to be made better.No one in this network is sent a cold request. We call first, explain the project without your name, and only bring you in when the answer is yes.
Factory owners quote you what they quote us. Our fee is agreed with you, never with them — which is why they keep picking up the phone.
Who was in the room, what was agreed, what comes next — written down the same day, visible to you and no one else.
See the rooms your project runs through.
Type it the way you'd say it on the phone. In a few seconds you see the steps, the rooms each step opens — by role, never by name — and the questions we'd ask first. Then a partner reads it and answers within one working day.
Your project as a trail, first step to signed.
Which office, which role, at which step.
What we'd ask before the first call, so the call counts.
We run our own deals on this network.
The fastest way to judge a trade house is to look at what it builds for itself. Both ventures run on the same factories, the same logistics and the same rule we give clients: the factory price is the factory price, and we earn one agreed commission on top.
BuyContainers.now
New shipping containers, factory-direct from China — documented cost plus one agreed commission, specialty units at around half of US retail. The same factory lines and grading standards our clients get.
Visit buycontainers.nowTMRWD Health
Healthcare products from verified factories, quality tracked from raw material to delivery — you pay only what you approve. Verification that holds for medical supply holds for anything.
Visit tmrwdhealth.comFour partners. The whole deal, covered.
Law, manufacturing, logistics and the relationships that open doors — four senior partners on your project, by name.
Dana
Founder · The network17 years of cross-border deals, and the relationships that open the right rooms — factory owners, ports, the offices approvals run through. On your project, she runs the room.
Paula
Head of Legal · The lawM&A and cross-border counsel behind deals for Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Carlyle, EQT and Warburg Pincus. On your project, she writes the contracts that hold in Chinese courts.
Alice
Head of Manufacturing · The factoryTwenty years inside Chinese factories, supplying Cardinal Health, McKesson and Medline — industries where a quality failure is not an option. On your project, she stands on the factory floor.
Terry
Head of Logistics · The logisticsTwenty years moving cargo across every major lane — ocean, customs, consolidation, delivery. On your project, she gets it home.
Four answers, before you write in.
What exactly is SilkNet — a consultant, an agent, a trader?
None of the three. A consultant hands you a report. A sourcing agent quietly earns on the factory side. SilkNet is a trade house: paid by you alone, one fee agreed up front, responsible for the whole project — the rooms, the contracts, the factory, the cargo and the payment.
How confidential is my project?
Completely. Every engagement begins under NDA; your trail is visible only to the stakeholders you approve; we never publish client names, mandate holders or deal details. Suppliers we check never learn who asked.
Is my project too small?
Seriousness, not size. A real project with a real budget behind it, we can help — and for a single supplier or product line, the check is built exactly for that. Marketplace reorders, dropshipping and lowest-quote shopping are better served elsewhere, and we'll say so.
How do you charge?
One fee, agreed with you before the deal starts. We are paid by you alone — never by the factory, never inside the price.
The full FAQ — finding factories, verifying suppliers, tariffs, trademarks, entities, payment →
Start your trail.
Tell us the project. That message is step one — from there, the deal runs on its own private trail.
Or write directly: [email protected]