Beijing: China now has more privately-held start-ups valued by investors at over USD 1 billion than the US, a report said. There were 206 Chinese firms out of a global total of 494 ultra-valuable start-ups -- known as "unicorns" -- in June 2019, according to firm Hurun Report.
This makes China the country with the largest number of unicorns in the world, with the US coming in 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 said.
"The rest of the world needs to wake up to creating an environment that allows unicorns to flourish in." According to Hurun, China is home to the world's three most valuable unicorns -- Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, app maker ByteDance and ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, which have a combined value of USD 280 billion.
Major US names like Airbnb and coworking space operator WeWork also made the list, which included lesser-known startups like California-based automated pizza delivery company Zume and Indian fantasy sports platform Dream11.
