China's unicorn companies close in on the US

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China is cantering up to the U.S. in the number of unicorns hatched in the nation each year, a significant shift which has broken a near monopoly on the origin of the world’s most notable billion-dollar startups.

With a rise in government incentives and increasingly dynamic funding scene, each year, China’s recent tech boom has given birth to progressively more valuable companies. More than a third of the startups joining the billion-dollar club this year will be Chinese, estimates a recent report by venture capital database CB Insights.

In an aggressive game of catch up, China has gone from uninhabited by unicorns in 2013, to breeding a staggering 16 such companies so far this year, closely trailing the US. Meanwhile, the historic leader has been forced to share its dominance in the realm, accounting for merely 41% of the hefty private firms this year, down from 75% in 2013.

Companies that have gained unicorn status this year include Toutiao, a news app valued at 11 billion US dollars in the second quarter this year, following a 1 billion US dollar investment from CCB International and Sequoia Capital China.

Leading bike sharing firms, Mobike and ofo, have also earned the title with a series fund injections from Tencent, Foxconn, Alibaba and Coatue Management, fueling a nation-wide bike sharing frenzy.

China has in the past three years established itself not only in sheer number but also the scale of the rare and successful ventures that have emerged from the nation.

Seven out the ten largest companies worth over 1 billion US dollars at the initial evaluation is Chinese, with e-commerce giant Alibaba group and group buy site China Internet Plus, also known as Meituan, leading the pack. They came ahead of U.S. startups Infor, Facebook and Theranos, the once high-flying blood testing company now battered by scandals.

Beijing-based Didichuxing, worth 50 billion US dollars, is the second most valuable startup to date, after its US ride-hailing counterpart Uber, last valued at 68 billion US dollars.

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