China added 1 unicorn per week last year despite slumping global investments thanks partly to AI frenzy, report says
- In 2023, China saw 56 new start-ups reaching a valuation of over US$1 billion, according to the Hurun Global Unicorn Index
- China had a quarter of the world’s known unicorns, led by those in the artificial intelligence, semiconductor and new energy sectors
China last year bred an average of one new unicorn each week amid frenzied growth in the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) sector, bucking a declining trend in global venture capital investments, according to a new research report.
The nation added 56 unicorns – start-ups valued at more than US$1 billion – in 2023, trailing only the US, which minted 70 unicorns, according to the Global Unicorn Index 2024 published by the Hurun Research Institute on Tuesday. The rest of the world saw the arrival of 45 new unicorns, the report said.
The US remains the top breeding ground for unicorns, with more than 700 of the global total of 1,453 based there. In second place was China, which had more than 340 unicorns as of last year.
AI overtook e-commerce to become one of the top three unicorn-producing sectors: as of the end of last year, there were 115 AI unicorns. The other popular sectors were fintech, which had 185 unicorns, and software-as-a-service, which yielded 139 unicorns, according to the report.
“The US has half of the world’s known unicorns, led by software-as-a-service, fintech and AI, China a quarter, led by AI, semiconductors and new energy, while the rest of the world has the other quarter, led by fintech and e-commerce,” said Hoogewerf.
