The “unicorn” in fairy tales is a rare animal, a symbol of courage and beauty; while the “unicorn enterprise” in the business field represents some seemingly magical innovations, they Open up new space for economic growth.
The concept of unicorn enterprise was first proposed by American Cowboy Venture investor Aileen Lee in 2013. Enterprises with more than 1 billion US dollars are interpreted as “Double Ten Standards”.
Unicorn companies are usually regarded as an important weather vane of the “new economy”. Three core characteristics of horn enterprises. They are becoming an important engine for the development of the new economy due to their fast development speed, sparse number, favored by investors, explosive growth, and disruptive innovation.
Hurun Research Institute recently released the “Global Unicorn Index 2021”. The deadline is November 30, 2021, which is the third time the Hurun Research Institute has released the global unicorn list.
Through market information and data, we try to imitate the panorama of China’s unicorn companies, and explore their regional distribution, capital support, and industry sectors. Grow the password and tap the direction of future innovation.
Top 10 in the world, China accounts for three
Data shows that 2021 will be a world-class entrepreneurial year, with the number of global unicorns reaching 1,058, almost double the number of the previous year. The United States ranked first with 487, an increase of 254 over the previous year; China ranked second with 301, an increase of 74 over the previous year. The U.S. and China account for 74% of the world’s total unicorns.
In the top ten of the global unicorn list, my country’s ByteDance, Ant Group and Cainiao Network occupy three seats respectively. Among them, the valuation of ByteDance, the parent company of Douyin, increased by 1.7 trillion yuan to 2.3 trillion yuan, surpassing Ant Group and becoming the world’s largest unicorn.
Unicorn “track” is steady and changing
The mission of unicorns is business innovation. Half of the world’s unicorns are companies in fintech, software services, e-commerce, artificial intelligence and healthtech, with cybersecurity and blockchain new to the top ten industries in 2021.
In general, China’s unicorns have obvious Internet imprints. From the perspective of industry categories, financial technology, software services and E-commerce has become the top three industries with the most unicorns.
In recent years, my country has actively encouraged “hard technology” companies. Judging from the distribution of the top ten unicorn companies in China, in addition to the above three In addition to large industries, there are logistics, digital technology, robotics, artificial intelligence, etc., showing a more obvious trend of diversification, which are also in the hottest future industry track.
Capital “spawn” and big factory “derivative”
The most important force behind unicorns is venture capital (abbreviation: VC).
As far as the VC institutions behind unicorns are concerned, Sequoia China is the investment institution that has captured the most Chinese unicorns and is still the most active in investing. It is also one of the most discerning VC institutions. Followed by Hillhouse, IDG Capital, Tencent and CICC.
In China, the parent companies of many “unicorns” are Internet “big companies”. Alibaba has incubated the most unicorns with 5, followed by JD.com and Baidu with 3 each.
Including Haier, Didi, Ping An, Geely, Five Star Holdings, SF Express, 58.com, Skyworth and Lepu MedicalThese 9 parent companies have hatched 2 unicorns, and Weigao has also incubated 1 unicorn.
Shandong characteristic “unicorn” emerges
The list shows that Shandong has added three new global unicorn companies, with a total of 6 companies on the list, with an overall valuation of 72 billion yuan and an average valuation of 12 billion yuan.
From the perspective of geographical distribution, Shandong’s unicorn enterprises are mainly located in Qingdao and Weihai. Among them, Qingdao won the championship with an absolute advantage of having 5 unicorn companies.
From the point of view of the industry that gave birth to unicorns, Shandong has embarked on the path of “overtaking on a curve”, grasping the new infrastructure outlet, and using industrial The Internet is the starting point to create a new engine driving economic development. Haier Kaos is an industrial Internet platform with China’s independent intellectual property rights, and Goodaymart Logistics has become the first logistics unicorn enterprise in the Internet of Things scenario.
“100 million-level financing” projects frequently appear
Financing channels and capital injections often reflect a company’s market prospects. After analysis, over a period of time, industries with more financing rounds and larger financing amounts have better market prospects.
Enterprise investigation and public report data show that 6 unicorn companies in our province have completed multiple rounds of financing. According to incomplete statistics, as of now, Energy Chain Group has completed more than 8 rounds of financing, and Chuangqizhi, Tedian, Kaos, and Goodaymart have all completed 4 or more rounds of financing.
Unicorn development, Shandong is on the way
Before 2018, there were no unicorn enterprises in Shandong, which ranked the top three in the country in terms of economic aggregate. The breakthrough in the number of global unicorns from 0 to 6, the clustering of “unicorns” in Shandong is not accidental. It has specific policies, industries and capital logic, which is a microcosm of the rapid growth of the new economy.
In the past four years, our province has taken the introduction and cultivation of unicorn enterprises as an important starting point to promote technological innovation and economic development: “cultivating independent Corner Enterprise” has been included in the provincial government work report for many times; at the same time, a series of measures such as the “Three-Year Action Plan for High-quality Development of the Private Economy in Shandong Province (2020-2022)” and the “Top Ten Innovations” 2022 Action Plan have been introduced. Implement the pilot enterprise cultivation plan, and actively cultivate high-quality enterprises such as “specialized, refined and new”, individual champions, gazelles, unicorns, etc.; Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai and other cities are eager to introduce unicorn enterprise cultivation and support policies. Animal enterprises provide a good environment.
More new economic enterprises have emerged. In 2018, the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology released the list of the first batch of unicorn enterprises in Shandong. At present, four batches of unicorn enterprises have been recognized by Shandong Province, and the number of unicorn enterprises in Shandong Province has reached 20.
Planning: Dai Lingling
Data/Copy: Liu Lanhui
Design: Tang Haoxin
Produced by Dazhong Daily Data Journalism Studio
Special thanks to: Shandong New Kinetic Fund Management Co., Ltd.