According to a list titled Hurun Global Unicorn List 2019, China has the largest amount of startups in the world valued at over $1 billion followed by the USA. The list says that there are a total of 494 tech startups, also known as unicorns, that haven’t gone public and were set up in the 2000s. These startups are valued at over a billion dollars.
Out of the 494 unicorns, 206 are in China, 203 in the US, India has 21, the UK has 13 and Germany has 7.
The Chairman and chief researcher of Shanghai-based Hurun Report, at the unveiling of the 2019 report said:
China and the Us dominate over 80% of the world’s known unicorns, despite representing only half of the world’s GDP and a quarter of the world’s population. The rest of the world needs to wake up to creating an environment that allows unicorns to flourish.
Stunningly, three unicorns including Ant Financial Services, the operator of Alipay, ByteDance (the owner of TikTok) and taxi booking company Didi Chuxing have a combined value of $280 billion.
In terms of sectors, 192 of them are in the e-commerce sector, 118 in cloud computing, AI (artificial intelligence) and logistics sectors.
China will definitely rely on the private sector as the state machine runs out of steam.