Unicorn, an extremely rare fictional creature in ancient myths and legends, is said to have a special meaning when it appears in the world, and its horns even have the effect of immortality. Therefore, unicorns are extremely precious and can not be found.
In 2013, Cowboy Ventures founder and venture capitalist Aileen Lee began to use the term Unicorn to describe start-ups valued at more than $1 billion, because it is very difficult for startups to achieve a valuation of $1 billion, so it is very rare and is the object of competition in the investment industry.
However, with the rise of new technologies and the diversification of financing channels, technology startups are springing up one after another, and "unicorns" are not as rare as they were then. In the "Global Unicorn list" recently released by CB Insights, a famous venture capital research institution in the United States, there are 214companies on the list.
Of course, in addition to the growing number of unicorns around the world, the list reflects another change that is taking place-the rise of Chinese start-ups.
Chinese and American "unicorns" compete with each other.
At present, China has become the country with the second largest number of unicorns, after the United States. China accounts for 55 of the 214 companies on the list, according to CB Insights.
Although the US company Uber is still at the top of the list, among the top 10 "unicorns" by market capitalization, with the exception of six US companies, the other four are Chinese companies, namely, DiDi Global Inc. and XIAOMI, who ranked second and third, Lufax Holding at eighth and Meituan-Dianping (the new name after the merger of Meituan and Dianping) at ninth.
Chinese companies also occupy seven seats in the top 20, including Jinri Toutiao, DJI drones and Zhongan Insurance (06060), which is about to be listed in Hong Kong, as well as 10 American companies. two Indian companies and one Swedish company:
Looking back at the beginning of the list in 2013, non-American "unicorns" accounted for only 27% of the list, but this year, non-American "unicorns" accounted for 57% of the list. The number of unicorns from China can already compete with the United States.
According to CB Insights, 24 of the 42 new startups this year are from outside the United States, of which 16 are from China, including familiar names such as mobike, Ofo, Zhihu Inc., Jinri Toutiao and NetEYun Music.
In addition, in terms of the amount of money raised, China has gradually overtaken the United States. This year alone, China's new "unicorn" has raised nearly US $5 billion, accounting for 44% of the global total. The proportion of the United States is only 40%:
The rapid development of domestic start-ups has something to do with China's huge mobile network population. According to the latest data, 4G mobile phone users in China have exceeded 800 million, while 4G was launched in China only two years ago.
On the other hand, mobile payments cover almost every aspect of people's lives in China. In 2016, mobile payments totaled $112 billion in the United States and $5.5 trillion in China, with a 50-fold difference. Even street singers put a QR code in front of them instead of a coin hat.
The large user base of mobile, and the convenience of mobile payment, these two factors give Chinese start-ups a great development advantage in the concentrated areas of software services, e-commerce and financial technology. In the future, China's "unicorn" will also overtake the United States in global share.
Who will be the next Zhongan Insurance?
In fact, one of the 20 "unicorns" is about to leave the army to "fly alone": companies that are already listed in principle will no longer be listed as "unicorns", while Zhongan Insurance will be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in two days. That is, this Friday (September 28) listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
From "Unicorn" to IPO, the listing of Zhongan Insurance is also inseparable from the "blessing" of "three horses" (Ma Huateng, Ma Yun, Ma Mingzhe). The shareholding of Ant Financial Services Group, Tencent and Ping an Insurance also made Zhong an attract the attention of people from all walks of life in the market from the early days of listing.
With the label of financial technology, Zhong'an Insurance is born with a high valuation. After all, Softbank Corp., who has a discerning eye in the field of venture capital, has already spent nearly 3.5 billion yuan in real gold and silver. Zhitong Financial APP has published relevant articles about this before: "Will Zhongan Insurance (06060) lead Hong Kong stocks to a new milestone?"well, I won't repeat it here.
It is worth noting that another fintech "unicorn" in the top 20 is also from China-Lufax Holding, the eighth, and the only fintech company in the top 10, is likely to be the next Zhongan insurance.
In fact, Lufax Holding's listing plan may have come a little earlier than Zhongan, which proposed it in 2015, and in March this year, Lufax Holding Co-Chairman and CEO Ji Kuisheng revealed in a television interview that the company's listing location is most likely in Hong Kong.
However, although Lufax Holding announced the completion of US $1.216 billion in financing in January 2016, valuing it at US $18.5 billion, the listing plan has been delayed and its plan to submit an A1 listing application to the HKEx in the first quarter of 2017 has come to nothing.
The main reason is that Lufax Holding's profit situation is really worrying. As a big brother in the P2P industry for many years, the company is huge in trillions, but it has not made any money in recent years. Lufax Holding posted a net loss of 106 million yuan in 2016 and 25.188 billion yuan in 2015, according to the mutual fund association.
However, judging from the semi-annual report released by Lufax Holding's shareholder Ping an Group, the situation seems to be beginning to improve. Although there are no specific profit figures, there is a paragraph in the report:In the first half of the year, Lufax Holding Ltd maintained rapid development and made a profit in the areas of wealth management, consumer finance and inter-agency trading. "
In addition, Lufax Holding also maintained a rapid growth in the number of users and transaction scale in the first half of this year, and did not lose ground in the competition with Ant Financial Services Group and JD.com Finance for the leader of domestic Internet finance:
Lufax Holding, which has made a profit for six years, can finally put its listing on the agenda next year.
A lesson for the forerunner
In fact, on the other side of the ocean, there are already two domestic P2P companies listed in the United States: pleasant loans and trust and wealth, and so far they are all doing well.
According to the results released not long ago, the company's net income in the second quarter was $177 million, up 61 per cent from a year earlier, and its net profit was $40.3 million, up 3 per cent from a year earlier.
Source: Futu Securities
Although there is a wide gap between net profit growth and income growth, the company's share price fell sharply in early August, but it did not reverse its overall upward trend, and the stock price has risen by more than 300% since it went public in December 2015.
Although the net loss of CITIC, which just went public in April, widened to $13.5 million in the second quarter from a year earlier, its net loss as a share of total borrowing transactions is shrinking, and its net loss is flat year-on-year without taking into account customer incentives (subsidies to lenders), which surged to $8.2 million.
Compared with these rising stars, the life of Lending Club, the founder of the American Internet loan industry, is quite difficult, and losses have become the norm for Lending club in recent years.
As the largest online lending platform in the United States, Lending Club once had a market capitalization of $10 billion when it went public in 2014, making it the first stock in Internet finance in the world. But the company's loss reached $5 million in the year after its listing, and rose to $146 million in 2016.
Lending Club's share price has also been hit by years of losses: it rose to $29 when it went public, but now it has only $5 left.
Of course, Lending Club's loss has something to do with its previous scandals. in May last year, Renaud Laplanchee, then the then CEO and founder, sold a near-high-quality loan of $22 million to a single investor, violating the company's operational and disclosure requirements, and the company's share price collapsed.
For Lufax Holding, these lessons will provide great reference value for the company's way to go public. As long as it doesn't come up with something like Lending Club, Lufax Holding's future as the next public security insurance is still unlimited.