In March of this year, the Torch Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology and Great Wall Strategic Consulting jointly released the "2017 China Unicorn Enterprise Development Report", which sparked discussions and attention from all sectors of society towards unicorn enterprises and the development of the new economy and the cultivation of new driving forces.

Unicorn enterprises refer to companies that have been established for no more than ten years and have a valuation of no less than 1 billion US dollars. Among the 164 unicorn companies on the list, 84% of them are concentrated in "Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen", and only one company from Ningbo is on the list.

On September 8th, guided by the Ningbo Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, hosted by the Beijing Great Wall Enterprise Strategy Research Institute, and organized by the Ningbo New Economy Industry Development Research Institute, the Unicorn Enterprise (Ningbo) Innovation Forum discussed how to explore unicorns and cultivate new economic explosive points in Ningbo.

Changmu New Materials has been listed as a unicorn seed enterprise in Ningbo. In addition, new materials and new energy vehicles have become the two major "seed players"!

As of December 31, 2017, there were a total of 164 unicorn companies in China with a total valuation of 628.4 billion US dollars and an average valuation of 3.83 billion US dollars.

164 unicorn companies are mainly distributed in 19 cities, with 84% of unicorn companies gathered in "Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen". Relying on abundant innovation and entrepreneurship resources, the high-tech zone has gathered 76.2% of unicorn enterprises.

The first unicorn company in Ningbo, Zhidou Automobiles, has been listed, making Ningbo one of the nineteen cities in China with unicorn companies. Subsequently, Ningbo discovered a second unicorn enterprise, Rongbai Lithium Battery.

Why pay attention to cultivating unicorn companies?

Wu Wensheng, General Manager of Great Wall Strategy Consulting, based on long-term tracking and research on unicorn companies, pointed out that unicorns have driven and led the development of many original emerging industries.

The 40 years of reform and opening up have also seen rapid development, but many local economic developments have followed suit or been introduced, digested, and absorbed. The many projects of unicorns have leadership and originality, which is the core competitiveness of a major country's economy! At the same time, the unicorn economy will promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, leapfrog development, and drive the development of local new industrial clusters

Wu Wensheng divides entrepreneurship into three categories: one is survival oriented entrepreneurship, opening a small store or factory. For such entrepreneurial enterprises, the main factors are inclusive policies and a favorable business environment.

There is also a type of entrepreneurship called developmental entrepreneurship, which can continuously grow in this industry and maintain a relatively high annual growth rate, with a high compound growth rate of 20% to 30%. How can we support these enterprises and guide them to gather advantageous resources such as talent, capital, and technology? This is something that the government can do.

Another type is transformative entrepreneurship, where the original team had excellent entrepreneurial skills and networking resources, aiming to become a leader in the industry or have the ability to disrupt the industry's technology. This is a unicorn enterprise, and these enterprises may have many new technologies, new models, and new innovations. Therefore, we need to be tolerant of regulation, especially in some new initiatives, and collaborate with them for innovation

What is a gazelle enterprise? It is a compound annual growth rate for three consecutive years, currently set at 20%.

Wu Wensheng noticed that entrepreneurs in Ningbo are concerned about cutting-edge technological innovation. Ningbo's materials and manufacturing industries have a good foundation, and "we need to cultivate and explore unicorns in these key cutting-edge technologies

Seed player of Ningbo Unicorn

At present, potential unicorn companies in Ningbo include Versatile Network, Jianxin Nuclear Magnetic, Shisheng Technology, and Sea Fresh. In addition to potential unicorns, Ningbo also has a group of high growth unicorn seed companies, among which Changmu New Materials is listed.

Cai Jie, Partner of Great Wall Strategy Consulting and Vice President of Zhejiang Company, has been tracking and researching the development of unicorn enterprises in the Zhejiang region for a long time. The more complete the industrial ecology in a region, the easier it is for innovative enterprises to emerge

Cai Jie introduced that in the first round of research in Ningbo, about 30 companies were discovered, which have some common characteristics. They are basically established within 5 years and belong to the "four new" fields of new technologies, new industries, new formats, and new models. A growth mechanism with cross platform advantages.

He analyzed that the potential unicorn fields of Ningbo enterprises are consistent with the key development fields of Ningbo, one is new materials and the other is new energy vehicles. About 75% of the companies surveyed are primarily technology driven, with products and technologies breaking international monopolies.

How to excavate and cultivate Ningbo unicorns

Zhejiang has two unicorn cities, Hangzhou and Ningbo. The majority of the 17 unicorns in Hangzhou are e-commerce and Internet finance enterprises.

Compared with its sister city Hangzhou, Ningbo does have obvious shortcomings, "Cai Jie admitted. Ningbo still lacks entrepreneurial leaders, cross-border integration, and local capital density." Overall, local venture capital institutions in Ningbo will pay more attention to short-term financial capabilities, while the financing environment in Guangzhou and Shenzhen focuses more on long-term capabilities of enterprises

The failure rate of entrepreneurship is very high. If a region has a good atmosphere for entrepreneurship and innovation, it can become a good condition for the birth of unicorns. Cai Jie suggested that special policy opinions to support and cultivate the development of unicorn enterprises can be accelerated, and unicorn mining work can be carried out to further optimize and improve the entrepreneurial investment environment.

At the same time, we will further leverage the platformization of large enterprises and focus on promoting the construction of mass entrepreneurship spaces throughout the Ningbo region, allowing these large enterprises to establish internal incubation platforms and provide new laboratories and public resource platforms for internal entrepreneurship and external makers.

To cultivate unicorns in Ningbo means embracing the enthusiasm of the new economy, valuing the cultivation of new business models and industries, and paying attention to cutting-edge new technologies. This is also the original intention of many urban areas to pursue unicorns, "said Cai Jie.

Xu Yun, Deputy Secretary and Deputy Director of the Party Committee of Ningbo Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, stated that in the context of unicorn enterprises becoming an important engine leading the upgrading of new industrial forms and the development of regional new economy, it is necessary to seek and cultivate a group of local unicorn enterprises in Ningbo to become new driving forces and engines leading emerging industries and future industrial development.