We’ve written recently about how domestic and global economic trends make it important for today’s entrepreneurs to take a global view with their startups. This doesn’t necessarily mean you should be investing your precious cash in setting up long-distance operations in other countries—which can be costly in ways other than labor; it can tax your strategic and managerial attention at a time when focus is of critical importance. (Noted angel investor Guy Kawasaki pointed this out to me, recently.)

It does mean that you need to be thinking about who your customers will be in the future: Think China. Think India. Both are places where the middle classes are growing, have money to spend on products and services, and are happily dolling it out.

There is more data to support this today, in a report on trends in VC deals done in China in Q3, released by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young.

In short, dollars rasied were up 5% to $677 million for the quarter. Total number of deals (59) were down a bit. But here is what matters most: more than half the money, and 60% of the investments, were made in the consumer products and services space.

“What we’re seeing in Mainland China [reflects] the fast growth in China’s middle class, which increasingly consumes more services,” said Bob Partridge, Ernst & Young’s China and Far East Venture Capital Advisory Group Leader. “Moreover, venture capitalists are attracted to this area by the relatively low capital requirements of services companies, [and] their ability to acquire customers rapidly…”

Make it you business to understand this growing consumer base. Serving them will only become more important to your company’s future. For more detail on what kinds of businesses are getting funded in China, we’ll publish Dow Jones’ data spreadsheet momentarily.