GBA sees 7 new global unicorns in 2023: report

The third annual Global Unicorn CEO Conference was held in Guangzhou on April 9, during which the Hurun Research Institute unveiled the Global Unicorn Index 2024.

"The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) owns 70 global unicorns, including seven new ones, which is almost equivalent to the number of unicorns in India (67), while Guangzhou is home to 24 global unicorns, which is almost equivalent to that in Israel (26) or in Canada (25)," said Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher at the conference.

The Global Unicorn Index 2024 is a ranking of the world's start-ups founded in the 2000s, worth at least a billion dollars and not yet listed on a public exchange. Hoogewerf said in an interview during the conference that since 2019, the number of unicorns worldwide has tripled from 494 to 1,453, based in 53 countries and 291 cities. China alone ranked second in the number with 340 unicorn companies, mainly in the sectors of artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and new energy.

Global unicorns are transforming financial services, business management solutions, and healthcare. 78% of the companies sell software and services, led by fintech, software services, and AI, and 22% feature physical products, led by new energy, biotechnology, food and beverage, as well as semiconductors.

China has 11 unicorns valued at more than 100 billion yuan, among which five enterprises including Oppo, Vivo, and AION are based in the GBA, focusing on consumer electronics, new energy vehicles, and other fields. As for cities where the world's unicorns are based, Shenzhen and Guangzhou secured the sixth and ninth positions, respectively, in the top ten in the number of global unicorns.

In recent years, Guangdong has been dedicated to building a competitive ecosystem for unicorns. "Something that stands out for me in Guangzhou and the GBA is that it has a very active start-up ecosystem. You have a lot of policies to support, especially these fast-growing industries like AI, semiconductors, new-energy-related, and biotech," said Hoogewerf.

"Guangzhou is committed to promoting these fast-growing industries. Clearly, if you are going to embrace the future, you need to embrace the future of the fast-growing industries," he added. (GD Today)