Editor's Note: Beyond the glamour world of digital unicorns, star startups and publicly listed e-commerce and internet giants, there is a little known parallel universe of unsung corporate heroes that drive China's new-age entrepreneurial ventures. These are the low-key (and sometimes segment-leading) privately owned companies that are redefining innovation, the mantra that China swears by, as it seeks to transform itself from a mass-scale manufacturer of cheap goods for the world to a manufacturing giant of top-end products. These are the firms that have made fresh thinking and a bold approach to business their trademark - be it making customized garments for men or incorporating digital payment systems into wearable technologies. In a new series, China Daily celebrates the birth and growth of these awe-inspiring, attention-deserving enterprises. In this first part, we profile DunAn Group, a Hangzhou-based high-tech industrial equipment manufacturer that has supplied equipment to projects in 23 nuclear power plants in countries including China, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Argentina and Egypt.

Hangzhou-based DunAn Group, a private high-tech industrial equipment manufacturer, will supply high-grade air valves and cooling units to China General Nuclear Power Corporation's phase II project at the Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Plant by the end of this month, Chairman Yao Xinyi told China Daily in an interview.

The total supply contract value is 130 million yuan ($19.6 million), said Yao, and the equipment would assist the operation of the new-generation Hualong One nuclear reactor in the power plant, in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

The Hualong One, or HPR 1000, is a third-generation nuclear reactor design that its manufacturer says is one of the most advanced in terms of safety technology innovation and operating standards.

DunAn has to date supplied equipment to projects in 23 nuclear power plants in countries including China, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Argentina and Egypt.

DunAn's chairman said his company's goal was to own between eight and 10 listed companies through stock market flotations and mergers and acquisitions in both China and overseas during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20). The group currently has three listed companies in China.

With more than 20,000 employees and 35 subsidiaries in both China and internationally, DunAn's core business areas include making equipment used in nuclear power stations, producing chemicals used in industrial explosives, manufacturing wind power turbines, financial investments and manufacturing agricultural machinery.

Founded in 1987 in Zhuji in eastern China's Zhejiang province, the company has established offices in the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Thailand. Group revenues last year totaled 51.6 billion yuan.

"Having more listed companies means that we will be able to raise more capital from stock markets in both China and abroad to deploy more resources in expanding overseas sales channels, building new country branches, as well as enhancing our research and development abilities," Yao said.

Eager to enhance its earning ability in China's fast-growing intelligent manufacturing sector, in the first half of the current year DunAn partnered with the University of Tennessee to build a research institute to develop sensors and industrial robots.

Yao said China's fast-growing 4G network would provide a solid foundation for its manufacturers going forward. This in turn would benefit greener, more efficient and sustainable industrial development.

He said DunAn planned to build another research and development facility to develop environment-related products in Memphis to catch the consumer trend in the US.

"In the long-run, countries such as Turkey, Poland, Brazil and South Africa are fairly interested in China's latest nuclear technology and there is a chance for both State-owned enterprises and private companies such as DunAn to form alliances to develop foreign markets together," said Zhao Ying, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Industrial Economics.