Tencent outperformed SoftBank in investing in technological unicorns

Tram Ho

Tencent, a Chinese technology company famous for its messaging app WeChat, has been silently but actively investing in startups across the globe for the past five years. These efforts have gradually brought results, bringing Tencent gradually forward, becoming one of the leading technology investment companies in the world.

Specifically, Tencent has invested in 46 unicorn companies (unicorn startup is a term that refers to the growing new companies valued at over $ 1 billion) globally. This figure exceeds 42 companies of Japan SoftBank Financial Investment Group. According to a report from Hurun Global Unicorn List 2019, China for the first time surpassed the United States in terms of unicorn companies. Tencent and SoftBank made the list of the top 10 investors, ranking second and third, behind only Sequoia Capital, a US-based investment fund with 92 unicorn companies.

The list of unicorn companies was created by Hurun, a publishing group based in Shanghai. The list recognizes companies that have been established since 2000, but most of these were established in 2010 onwards. Hurun also released an annual list of Chinese billionaires, but did not share its criteria for making lists.

Tencent vượt mặt cả SoftBank trong đầu tư vào các kỳ lân công nghệ - Ảnh 1.

Tencent is now China’s SoftBank.

The trend of investing in emerging companies with potential in the technology world has long been pursued by large corporations. SoftBank is the most prominent of them all, with large and very early investments in Uber, and a host of other successful startups in many countries like Slack, WeWork and Flipkart.

Meanwhile, Tencent focused on supporting startups in China, such as Didi Chuxing shipping service and digital banking WeBank, along with several startups in India.

In general, companies from China and the US dominate the list of the world’s top unicorn investors. Five units are from the US, including Tiger Fund, IDG, Goldman Sachs and private equity firm Andreessen Horowitz, while three faces are from China, Tencent, Alibaba and GGV.

Tencent vượt mặt cả SoftBank trong đầu tư vào các kỳ lân công nghệ - Ảnh 2.

List of the world’s leading technology startup companies.

However, in terms of absolute volume of investment, SoftBank may still lead. From 2015 to 2017, while Tencent only spent about $ 30 billion, Softbank’s Vision Fund spent about $ 80 billion. Even so, it is enough to be in China today, Tencent has been called “China’s SoftBank”. But this is only an estimate, because it is difficult to give an accurate figure of the total investment amount of Tencent, because normally the data is only collected from the investment rounds that these units reveal themselves.

Tencent often invests in companies that seem to be involved with its core businesses, such as games and social media. The Chinese tech giant has invested money in activities such as transportation, retail, online media and even electric car manufacturers inside and outside China, including a 5% stake in Tesla and 7.5% stake of Spotify. This year, it has invested in at least 11 companies, including UK-based AI Prowler and Chinese crowdfunding platform called Shuidi.

After years of strong investment, Tencent is reaping fruit. The company generated 27% of its net profit in the second quarter last year from the companies it invested in, compared with 22% in the same period last year. SoftBank, meanwhile, is under pressure from investors amid a series of slow-growing companies such as Uber and Slack, WeWork, which failed to IPO, and had to cut staff. series.

According to the latest CNBC report, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is considering refocusing a second Vision Fund, with the goal of raising $ 108 billion, to invest in AI and into companies that can make money quickly. quickly.

Reference Quartz

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Source : Trí Thức Trẻ