China has more unicorn startups than US

With more than US$ 1 billion, China now has more privately-held start-ups valued by investors than US, according to the research firm Hurun Report. The study pointed out that there were 206 Chinese firms out of a global total of 494 ultra-valuable start-ups — known as “unicorns”. US stood second, with 203 such companies.

“China and the USA 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,” Hurun Report chairman Rupert Hoogewerf stated. Most unicorns globally pertained to e-commerce and fintech, followed by cloud computing, artificial intelligence and logistics.