Weblog with daily updates of the news on a frugal, fair and beautiful China, from the perspective of internet entrepreneur, new media advisor and president of the China Speakers Bureau Fons Tuinstra
Winston Ma, Professor (Adjunct) and Executive Director, Global Public Investment Funds Forum, New York University School of Law and author of “The Hunt for Unicorns: How Sovereign Funds Are Reshaping Investment in the Digital Economy” gives advice on how to find the new unicorns and where to invest in digital infrastructure, cloud computing, and data preparation at the Cube, hosted by SiliconANGLE Media Inc. Co-Founder and Co-CEO John Furrier.
The number of unicorns, companies worth more than US$1 billion, exploded globally over the past three years, despite the slowdown caused by Covid-19, says Hurun chairman Rupert Hoogewerf during the release of the Global Unicorn Index 2023 by Hurun Research Institute, at the China Daily. Especially the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) did very well, the report says.
The China Daily:
A total of 63 companies in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area have made it onto the Global Unicorn Index 2023 by Hurun Research Institute, an increase of 12 compared to a year earlier and double the number listed on the index before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the top 10 unicorns from China listed on the global 2023 index, half are in the GBA, including Guangzhou-based fast fashion platform Shein (ranking 4th), Shenzhen-based digital bank WeBank (ranking 6th), Dongguan-based mobile phone makers Oppo and Vivo, and Shenzhen-based drone maker DJI. …
According to the index, Guangzhou was the Chinese city with the fastest growing number of unicorns in the past year. There were 22 unicorns from Guangzhou in the latest ranking, 12 more than a year earlier.
“The three years after the COVID-19 outbreak were the most active period for unicorns. Over the past three years, a new unicorn was created every day in the world, bringing the total to more than 1,360. Despite economic slowdown, there were over 500 new unicorns globally in the past year, which is equivalent to nearly 10 each week on average,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun index.
He said unicorn companies grew rapidly in the first half of 2022, but slowed down significantly in the second half.
“That was because of the US interest rate hikes, the global economic downturn and uncertainties (which) led to investment institutions nearly halting the funding of new projects. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank further lowered valuations.”
Guangzhou added in the first six months of 2022 nine new global unicorns, a privately held startup company valued at over US$1 billion – taking its total to 19, according to a new list from the Hurun List, writes the China Daily. “These unicorns are leading a new generation of disruptive technology,” says Rupert Hoogewerf, chief researcher of the Hurun Report.
China Daily:
“These unicorns are leading a new generation of disruptive technology. With fintech, e-commerce, business management solutions, health tech and AI, industries are now attracting the world’s top young talent and smart capital,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report.
Hurun has been tracking global unicorns since 2017. The index ranking the world’s startups was introduced in the 2000s. It is worth at least $1 billion but not yet listed on a public exchange.
The world’s unicorns came from 48 countries and regions, with the United States leading with 625 companies, followed by China with 312 in the first half of this year, the report said.
Beijing-based Douyin, with 1.2 billion monthly active users for its flagship TikTok, is the world’s most valuable unicorn for the second year running.
The half-year index was released on the occasion of the Global Unicorn CEO Conference, which was also held in Guangzhou on Tuesday. It invited the world’s unicorns, investors and advisers to discuss innovation and entrepreneurship, new technologies and business models.
“Unicorns are a benchmark of a world-class startup ecosystem. The more unicorns a country has, the better the startup ecosystem,” Hoogewerf said.
There has been a massive surge in unicorns since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 369 new unicorns being found in the first six months of 2022 — or two a day — according to Hoogewerf.
“The 1,200 new unicorns minted in the last two years are disrupting financial services, business management solutions, healthcare and retail,” he said.
The US and China continue to lead the Hurun global unicorn list for 2021, says chief researcher of the report, Rupert Hoogewerf, although China is slightly behind the US, according to the Free Malaysia Today. “With its flagship TikTok closing in on 3 billion daily users, [ByteDance] has now grown to become a serious challenger to Facebook,” the report said.
The Free Malaysia Today:
China fell further behind the US in the number of startups valued at more than US$1 billion, according to a report published today by China-based researchers. However, the two countries continue to dominate the worldwide list of “unicorns”, as the highly valued unlisted companies are called.
The Global Unicorn Index 2021, compiled by Shanghai’s Hurun Research Institute, showed that Chinese unicorns accounted for 301, or 28%, of 1,058 unicorns worldwide, as of the end of November.
In all, 42 countries had at least one unicorn. Collectively, the companies were worth US$3.7 trillion.
Some 74 new Chinese unicorns were added to the list, compared with 254 in the US, which had 487, or 46%, of the global total. Despite the slower growth in China, the two countries together accounted for nearly three-quarters of the world’s unicorns.
India, which added 33 companies to the list, for a total of 54, ranked third.
“The US and China continue to dominate, with three-quarters of the world’s known unicorns, despite representing only a quarter of the world’s population,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher for the report.
But Hoogewerf added: “The rest of the world is playing catch-up, growing their share of the world’s unicorns from 17% two years ago to 26% this year.”
ByteDance, the parent of video app developer TikTok and Chinese sister app Douyin, was the most valuable unicorn on the list, with its valuation surging to US$350 billion, up from US$270 billion at the end of March last year.
“With its flagship TikTok closing in on 3 billion daily users, [ByteDance] has now grown to become a serious challenger to Facebook,” the report said.
Valued at US$150 billion, online financial service provider Ant Group fell to second place after Chinese regulators blocked its listing last year and ordered a revamp of its payment and lending businesses. The moves were part of Beijing’s antimonopoly investigation into parent company Alibaba Group Holding…
Hurun called 2021 the most successful year for startups, backed by the presence of an entrepreneurship ecosystem comprising affluent business people, world-class universities and, more importantly, venture capitalists.
“The role of investors is evolving to mentorship and scale-up opportunities, rather than just providers of cash,” said Hoogewerf. “The world’s leading unicorn investors are building ecosystems with their portfolio, [which is] hugely attractive to the world’s fastest-growing startups.”
Sequoia led the ranks of US investors, which also included Tiger Fund, Accel and Goldman Sachs. All of these more than doubled their investments in the 2021 unicorn list compared with last year.
SoftBank of Japan, Tencent of China and Temasek Holdings of Singapore were among active Asian investors.
The unicorn list also saw 201 companies removed from the ranking: Of those, 137 went public, 25 were acquired and 39 saw their valuations fell below US$1 billion. Some of the biggest decliners in value included Katerra, a US construction company, and Ucar, a Chinese ride-sharing company.
“For every successful unicorn you see, there are thousands of failed companies, as well as a new generation of future unicorns coming through,” said Hoogewerf.
China is home to four out of five largest unicorns - startups valued over one billion US dollars, second to the US, says the latest report by the Hurun Global Unicorn Index, published on Tuesday. “The rest of the world needs to wake up to providing an ecosystem that allows unicorns to flourish,” says Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun report to the South China Morning Post.
The South China Morning Post:
China is home to four of the world’s five largest unicorns – start-ups valued at more than US$1 billion – as the country recorded 227 such companies at the end of March, despite its protracted tech and trade war with the United States.
That total was behind the US tally of 233 unicorns in the same period, according to this year’s edition of the Hurun Global Unicorn Index released by Shanghai-based Hurun Research Institute on Tuesday. It said the US and China accounted for a combined 79 per cent of the world’s 586 known unicorns, based on valuations at the end of March.
“The US and China continue to dominate … despite representing only 40 per cent of the world’s GDP and a quarter of the world’s population,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of privately held Hurun Report, in a statement on Tuesday. “The rest of the world needs to wake up to providing an ecosystem that allows unicorns to flourish.”
The total value of all known unicorns in the world is US$1.9 trillion, equivalent to the GDP of Italy, according to Hurun Research.
The 10 top unicorns, businesses created in the 2000s, are worth US$542 billion, according to Hurun Research.
Hurun Research Institute has released the inaugural Hurun Global Unicorn List for 2019. All the top unicorns are not on a stock exchange and valuations are a snapshot on 30 June.
“We have found just under 500 unicorns in the world. The Hurun Global Unicorn List 2019 is designed to inspire entrepreneurship among wannabe entrepreneurs and encourage investors. These young companies, only seven years old on average, are the world’s most exciting start-ups, leading a new generation in disruptive technology,” said Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher Rupert Hoogewerf, also known by his Chinese name Hú Rùn.
Hurun Research Institute found 494 unicorns in the world, based in 25 countries and 118 cities. They were created seven years ago on average, are worth US$3.4 billion on average and US$1.7 trillion in total.
Sequoia, Tencent, and IDG are the top investors in Chinese unicorns, says last weeks Hurun report on 202 unicorns, start-ups valued at more than US$1 billion, in China as of the first quarter of 2019. Shanghai’s new tech board would be an attractive listing option for Chinese unicorns, said Rupert Hoogewerf, founder and chief researcher of Hurun at the South China Morning Post.
The South China Morning Post:
The Hurun report lists 202 unicorns, start-ups valued at more than US$1 billion, in China as of the first quarter of 2019. Sequoia China has invested in 53 of them, Tencent has put money into 31 and IDG has invested in 25.
“China has the largest number of unicorns in the world,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher at Hurun.
More than 70 per cent, or 146, were in sectors such as internet services, e-commerce, internet finance, health care, culture and entertainment, artificial intelligence, and logistics, according to the report. The 202 unicorns have a combined valuation of more than 5 trillion yuan (US$732 billion)...
The Hurun report found that Beijing was home to 82 unicorns, 41 per cent of the total in China, followed by Shanghai with 45, Hangzhou with 19 and Shenzhen with 16. Hangzhou is the headquarters of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, the parent company of the South China Morning Post.
Alibaba’s financial arm Ant Financial, TikTok owner Bytedance and ride hailing giant Didi Chuxing topped the Hurun unicorn list.
Sequoia China has invested in Ant Financial, Bytedance, drone maker DJI, short video app Kuaishou, JD Logistics, and education start-up VIPKID, while Didi Chuxing, Kuaishou, JD Logistics and health platform WeDoctor are in Tencent’s portfolio.
The report also included a list of 70 “future unicorns” that have potential to become US$1 billion start-ups in the future, including gay dating app Blued, e-commerce company Club Factory and fitness app Keep.
Shanghai’s new tech board would be an attractive listing option for Chinese unicorns, said Hoogewerf. He added that while 20 per cent of unicorns might fail, and less than 10 per cent would be acquired, most would go on to a public listing.
The main reason for the current tech winter in China was the flush of money that has hit the industry, especially by the government, says VC veteran William Bao Beanto the BBC. A re-structuring of China's start-ups' scene is long overdue and that is good news for investors, he argues.
The BBC:
"What drove things completely insane was too much money," argues William Bao Bean, managing director of Chinaccelerator, a Shanghai-based start-up accelerator.
There was a "real push for economic growth from the government" and big funding from state coffers, he says.
This has levelled off.
"Before, you could get $3m with two people knocking and a smile. Now you can get $3m with two people knocking and a smile and six weeks of meetings," he says.
Dockless bike sharing rivals Mobike and Ofo were pedalling off with investors' money last year in a bitter duel for market share.
That sector's now hit the brakes...
But there are advantages to China's tech bubble deflating.
For investors, things are "actually much better in a downturn than a hot period, so good companies have a chance to shine," says Mr Bean.
When everybody can get money, "it makes it difficult for the best to stand out", he says.
The stagnation of China's growth caused a massive drop of rich out of the Hurun China Rich List, says Hurun chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf. But that drop has been more than compensated by the record growth of new unicorns in the country, he tells the South China Morning Post. China fostered almost 100 new unicorns in 2018.
The South China Morning Post:
“This year, we have a record high number of people dropping from our Hurun China Rich List because of an economic slowdown,” said Ruper Hoogewerf, the chairman and chief researcher at Hurun, in a statement on Thursday.
“However, there are still more than 200 new billionaires on the rich list and the leading companies of these new billionaires are these unicorns.”
The latest Hurun findings further burnish how China’s start-ups – in industries spanning e-commerce and financial technology to transport and artificial intelligence – have helped transform the way the country’s people shop, travel, invest, eat and get entertainment over the past decade, riding on a flood of enthusiastic investments from domestic and overseas venture capitalists.
On-demand internet services unicorns, however, increased the most to 45. These include car-hailing app operator Ucar and JD Digits, the fintech unit of China’s second-largest e-commerce services provider JD.com.
While a total of 24 Chinese unicorns went public in 2018, some of these are now trading below their initial public offering prices like smartphone giant Xiaomi Corp and on-demand local services provider Meituan Dianping. That has resulted in investors’ weakened confidence in Chinese unicorns and triggered concerns about these firms being overvalued.
Hoogewerf, however, suggested these concerns are exaggerated. “Of the 24 unicorns that went IPO last year, over 70 per cent beat their pre-IPO valuation, which goes to show there is less of a bubble in the valuations than some people suggest,” he said.
Hurun also found that Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou were home to the most number of fast-growing Chinese start-ups last year – with 79, 42 and 18 unicorns, respectively, based in those major cities.
China overtook the US as the home of most unicorns, startups with a valuation of over US$1 billion, says the latest Hurun Report, according to the South China Morning Post.Hurun publisher Rupert Hoogewerf: “These unicorns, mostly in the new economy, are the fastest-growing companies with the most potential to grow big against a slowing economy.”
The South China Morning Post:
China’s sprawling network of start-ups worth at least US$1 billion expanded to 181 in the third quarter, overtaking the United States as home to greatest number of successful new ventures, according to Shanghai-based Hurun Report said on Friday.
The world’s second-largest economy has added 34 “unicorns”, or start-ups worth at least US$1 billion, in the third quarter, the publisher said in a release on Friday.
The start-ups are worth a combined 4.8 trillion yuan (US$696 billion), and the valuation of its biggest unicorn, Ant Financial, has exceeded its counterparts in the US – Uber and Airbnb, the report said.
“China has already surpassed the US to become the country with the most unicorns,” said chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun report, Rupert Hoogewerf, in a statement.
“These unicorns, mostly in the new economy, are the fastest-growing companies with the most potential to grow big against a slowing economy.”
Rupert Hoogewerf - chief researcher and founder of the Hurun China Rich List - is a busy man. Every three days, a new unicorn - a company valued over 1 billion US dollar and unlisted - emerges in China, shows his latest report. "If model, talent and capital are all in place, start-ups can move very fast," said Rupert Hoogewerf to the Global Times.
The Global Times:
The total number of such companies stood at 151 as of the end of March, said the report.
Among 33 newly listed unicorn companies, Tencent Music, a streaming and downloading services provider like Spotify, ranked first in terms of market valuation worth 150 billion yuan ($23.89 billion), followed by JD Logistics with 70 billion yuan.
Around one-third of the companies are in the internet services sector including Ziroom, an online platform for apartment renting and sharing.
Next came culture, entertainment and mobility, with Aiways Technology Co, a 1-year-old Shanghai-based internet start-up focused on intelligent and electric vehicles, being the youngest unicorn.
Aiways said on Sunday that it has secured three rounds of financing totaling 7 billion yuan, industry news site tmtpost.com reported.
"If model, talent and capital are all in place, start-ups can move very fast," said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Research Institute.
Among all the unicorn companies surveyed by the Hurun report, Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, topped the list with a valuation of 400 billion yuan.
The financial technology giant is preparing to raise $9 billion in a private funding round ahead of its IPO, which may value the company at about $150 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on April 10, citing people familiar with the matter.
Among all of China’s 124 unicorns – private companies with a valuation of US$1 billion or above – 50.8 per cent are controlled or backed by BAT, according to a February report by information service provider ITJUZI.
“It’s impossible to be independent. Alibaba or Tencent would either copycat your technology or business model or they’ll invest in your competitor,” said Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group.
“They basically have a gun to your head and you have to choose which of the two companies you want to work with.”
Rein warns that if the Chinese internet landscape ends up looking similar to Japanese keiretsu or Korean chaebol – conglomerates that control huge swathes of their respective country’s industries – innovation will be stifled over the long term because large companies often become less nimble...
“If a [huge] company like Ele.me can’t even exist individually then what others companies can?” asks Rein, who is author of the book The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order.
