Overall private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) investment in Telecommunications, Media and Technology (TMT) in China hit a new half-year high in the first six months of 2017, according to the Money Tree Report released by PwC on Tuesday.

The report showed that PE and VC investment in the first half of this year totaled 56.879 billion US dollars, of which deals in the TMT industry stood at 30.75 billion US dollars in the first half, up 22.9 percent from the previous six months. 

Of the 1,582 deals in the first half of 2017, 49 had a value over 100 million US dollars, up nearly 50 percent from the second half of 2016. These large deals accounted for more than 70 percent of the total deal value in the TMT industry over the period. 

Additionally, one investment registered the largest single deal value seen since 2014.

“”After a lackluster second half last year, PE/VC investment regained momentum in 2017, demonstrating investors’ confidence in the TMT industry,“” online publication CFO Innovation wrote.

As for the sub-sectors, the Internet and mobile Internet TMT industry are still the "leader", with a total deal value of 21.31 billion US dollars in the first six-month period of this year, including three deals each worth over 1 billion US dollars, according to the report.  

Zhang Qin, managing partner of PwC’s Private Equity Fund Business Unit of China Northern District said, "the outstanding performance of large-scale investment reflects that investors still favor the industry of leading position and especially unicorns (a term referring to private companies valued at 1 billion US dollars or more) of stable growth. On the other hand, the number of deals less than 100 million US dollars has exceeded 1,500, indicating that they are still looking for the next unicorn."

"The first half of 2017 has seen investors keeping high interest in and expectations for the TMT industry in China," said Cai Mingren, partner of PwC China’s Audit Department.

"However, the risk of large investment still cannot be underestimated. First, the industry after several rounds of reshuffle may be overvalued. Second, most of China’s current unicorn enterprises are serving the local market’s Internet customers, the impact of the regional economic cycles can heavily affect the enterprises. In addition, in emerging industries with unicorns, relevant laws and regulations are not yet perfected, so investors need to watch policy risks."

(With inputs from Xinhua)