Hangzhou ranks third of unicorns in Hurun list Q1

Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province ranked third among the list of cities with the most "unicorn" companies in China with 19 startups, according to the Q1 Hurun Greater China Unicorn Index 2019 released May 7.

Beijing topped the list of cities with 82 startups, and Shanghai took second position housing 45 unicorns.

Twenty-one new unicorns were discovered in China in the first quarter of this year.

A unicorn, by definition, is a startup company valued at more than $1 billion. The list included 202 unicorn companies with a total estimated value of more than 5 trillion yuan ($738.56 billion) in China.

Ant Financial, an affiliate financial service of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, led all Chinese unicorns with a valuation of more than 1 trillion yuan, according to the report.

ByteDance Technology and Chinese taxi-hailing platform DiDi Chuxing from Beijing took the second and third places with a valuation of 500 billion and 300 billion yuan, respectively.

Seventy other high-growth enterprises in emerging industries are on the list of future unicorns.

The largest number of unicorns and future unicorns come from the internet service industry, with 42 and 16 respectively.

Other sectors that have witnessed significant unicorn growth are e-commerce, internet finance, healthcare, culture and entertainment, artificial intelligence (AI), and logistics service industries.

The AI industry enjoys a bright future as it has been fastest growing industry for three consecutive quarters, said Rupert Hoogewerf, founder and chief researcher at the Hurun Report.