Since 2013, Aileen Lee, a famous American investor in CowboyVenture, has referred to the start-up companies that have been established in the market for a short period of time (less than 10 years) and have been valued by investors or valuation agencies of more than 1 billion US dollars (about 6.3 billion RMB). After “unicorn”, the term has become the epitome of promising startups.
China has become a fertile ground for unicorns
As one of the main countries that breed unicorns, from 2013 to March 2018, CBInsight data showed that among the 237 unicorn companies in the world, 62 of them accounted for 26.16%, ranking second. The first is the United States, the birthplace of the unicorn concept, accounting for 49.78%.
In 2017, the report released by the Torch Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Great Wall Enterprise Strategy Research Institute further defined the concept of the Chinese unicorn: 1) An enterprise with legal personality registered in China; 2) It has been established for no more than ten years; 3) It has obtained private equity investment and has not yet been listed; 4) The enterprise valuation exceeds 1 billion US dollars.
Taking this definition as the standard, during the period from 2014 to 2018, my country added an average of 19 unicorn companies every year, which is an exponential growth. As of March 2018, there were 126 unicorn companies in China, with a total valuation of $625.3 billion.
Hurun Research Institute indexed the changes of unicorns in Greater China. As of September 30, 2018, the first three quarters of last year, the Chinese unicorn index was one every 3 days, every 3.5 days, and every 2.6 days. For new unicorns, the quarterly totals rose to 151, 162, and 181, respectively.
Although the data released by the three different statistical agencies are different, they all believe that Chinese unicorns are growing rapidly, with the characteristics of short growth cycle, strong innovation ability, and concentrated outbreaks.
Hurun said: “181 unicorns is a huge number, and China should have surpassed the United States to become the country with the most unicorn companies in the world. In the context of China’s slowing economic growth, these new economic Characteristic unicorns represent the fastest-growing companies with the greatest potential to scale.”
Industrial emerging industries emerge
In the classification of unicorn enterprises, in addition to the internet industry, which accounts for the majority, emerging industries represented by big data and artificial intelligence have emerged (see the end of the article for the Hurun Greater China Unicorn Index in the third quarter of 2018).
The following table shows the number changes in the first three quarters of 2018 according to the statistics of Hurun Research Institute:
It can be seen that there are more new faces in the artificial intelligence and big data industries, and more financing has been obtained.
For example, after SenseTime completed its $600 million Series C round of financing led by Alibaba in April, SenseTime completed a $620 million C+ round of financing in May.
According to the editor of Industrial Control, artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing are currently in the air, so they are more likely to be selected by investment institutions.
In terms of artificial intelligence, the policy continues to increase, and the future direction is clear. China also plans to promote a new generation of artificial intelligence, namely version 2.0. It is expected that the scale of China’s core artificial intelligence industry will expand significantly from 2020 to 2035.
The same is true for big data and cloud computing. As enterprises gradually tend to pursue digital business strategies, traditional IT services are transformed into cloud services, and the global cloud computing market size will further grow.
AlthoughrobotIt is also good-looking, but there are no new Robot unicorns on the list in the first three quarters.
Since 2018, the slowdown in the growth rate of the Robot Industry is obvious to all, especially the robot body.On the one hand domesticRobot marketIt is still occupied by foreign brands. On the other hand, in the domestic low-end price war environment, the domestic and foreign brands are under great pressure.
However, Horizon Robot, a new artificial intelligence unicorn on the list in the third quarter, has shown us new ideas. The “machine brain” motion control system is still very popular.
In the current situation where foreign control systems are expensive and domestic technology is scarce, local Robots must independently develop control systems if they want to break the monopoly of foreign capital and achieve breakthroughs.
From the increase and decrease of unicorn companies, we also seem to be able to see the direction of the industry. What do you think about this?
Note:
1. Among them, Horizon Robotics (artificial intelligence), Panshi (big data and cloud computing) with a valuation of RMB 10 billion, Momenta (artificial intelligence) with a valuation of RMB 7 billion, and Zero Krypton Technology were newly added to the list in the third quarter. (big data and cloud computing), Mobvoi (artificial intelligence), Moviebook (artificial intelligence).
2. The data comes from Hurun Research Institute and other institutions.
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