Venture capital funding is continuing to pour into Asia, with the year-to-date run rate putting the region’s tech start-ups on track to pull in $56.44bn this year, a 132 per cent annual rise.
Leading the charge are China’s big tech giants, who have taken the baton from the more traditional venture capital firms. Tencent outranked Sequoia as the top investor, with 19 unicorns to the venture capital firm’s 13. Almost half China’s 46 unicorns were backed by one of the members of China’s BAT tech trinity — Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent — or ecommerce site JD.com.
However, as in other parts of the globe, unicorns are a declining breed, according to CB Insights, a data intelligence platform. Just 17 were minted last year, down 26 per cent from the 2015 and with no major pick up seen so far this year.