China Becomes World’s Leading Unicorn Breeder
China barely ekes pass the U.S. this year in becoming the leading home to unicorns – or startups valued at $1 billion or more – with minuscule margin of three companies.
Of the 494 unlisted tech unicorns founded in the 2000s, China was home to 206 compared to the U.S.’s 203, according to the Hurun Global Unicorn List 2019. Alipay's Ant Financial, TikTok's owner ByteDance and ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing topped rankings with a combined valuation of $280 billion.
«China and the US dominate with over 80 percent of the world’s known unicorns, despite representing only half of the world’s GDP and a quarter of the world’s population,» said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Shanghai-based publishing group Hurun Report, in a statement. «The rest of the world needs to wake up to creating an environment that allows unicorns to flourish.»
The report found unicorns in 118 cities across just 24 countries with a total value of $1.7 trillion. Following the two major economies in unicorns established were India (21), U.K. (13) and Germany (7).
World's Unicorn Breeding Capital
Beijing ranked as the leading city for unicorns founded with 82 amounting to a significant gap from subsequent leaders including San Francisco (55), Shanghai (47), New York (25) and Hangzhou (19). Silicone Valley was ranked as the leading region for unicorns founded with 102.
Within China, financial technology was underlined as a rapidly growing market for large startups. At 22 unicorns valued at $262 billion, it was the second leading sector in the country behind e-commerce.
