Plan to boost emerging sectors, tech startups to create space for unicorns
Blessed with an innovative workforce and advanced infrastructure, Hangzhou is expected to see continuous expansion in the number and size of “unicorns”, according to a new strategic development plan.
The city government is working on an action plan to nurture more unicorns — startups valued at more than $1 billion — with heavy international influence in a bid to boost the development of its new economy.
Statistics show China has 204 unicorns, with more than 20 each in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shenzhen.
According to Hangzhou’s plan, the city will increase efforts to establish a stratified system to support the healthy development of startups, further implementing a complete unicorn incubation chain.
By 2020, the city aims to have 20 additional unicorns, with another 150 startups valued at more than $100 million, the plan said.
In addition, the city will speed up development of emerging sectors such as big data, cloud-computing, e-commerce and new energy vehicles, putting emphasis on innovation in areas including artificial intelligence, virtual reality and blockchain technology.
Hangzhou has 26 unicorns with a combined value exceeding 1.2 trillion yuan ($189 billion), according to city government data.
Ant Financial, an affiliate of tech titan Alibaba, which is headquartered in Hangzhou, is China’s top unicorn in terms of valuation.
“With the inflow of more venture capital institutions of global influence, Hangzhou will witness an ever-growing unicorn cluster thanks to the city’s forward-looking layout and policy orientation in new sectors, such as the digital economy and intelligent manufacturing,” said Wu Aiqi, a professor at Zhejiang University’s School of Management.
He added that the number and quality of unicorn enterprises in a city is closely related to the development of its startup ecology.
Hangzhou is also home to global giants such as Hikvision and Geely and has leading educational institutions like Zhejiang University, creating a sound and healthy unicorn incubating ecology, Wu added.
Hangzhou will witness an ever-growing unicorn cluster.”