Start-up: Beijing surpasses Silicon Valley in number of "unicorns"

The Chinese capital Beijing now surpasses Silicon Valley in number of "unicorns", these young companies with strong growth and valued at more than a billion dollars, according to a study published Tuesday.

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At the end of March, 586 companies of this type were listed in the world, according to a report by the media group Hurun, specialist in the business world and based in Shanghai (east of China). These companies represented a total of 1.900 billion dollars (1.614 billion euros) in terms of valuation, or the GDP of Italy, the study said.

Dominance of the United States and China

In number of unicorns, the United States dominates the world podium by a short head (233) just ahead of China (227). But with 93 technological nuggets installed in Beijing, the Chinese capital now surpasses San Francisco (68), where Silicon Valley is located, according to Hurun. Shanghai comes third with 47 unicorns listed. “ The United States and China continue to dominate, with over 80% of the world's unicorns, although (the two countries) only account for 40% of global GDP and a quarter of the world's population ,” commented the President of Hurun, Rupert Hoogewerf.

Chinese companies occupy the top three steps of the unicorn podium: Ant Financial (number one in electronic payment in China with the Alipay platform), ByteDance (parent company of the popular video-sharing application TikTok) and Didi Chuxing (bookings for vehicle with driver). Among the top-ranked American companies are Space X (5th, astronautics and spaceflight) founded by Elon Musk, the whimsical boss of Tesla, Stripe (6th, online payment) and Airbnb (7th, rental of accommodation between individuals).

France is ninth in the world ranking. It has seven unicorns including carpooling platforms BlaBlaCar (169th) and music streaming Deezer (351st).