"The whole industry has just died before our eyes," a Beijing-based executive told the FT. "The entrepreneurial spirit is dead. It is very sad to see."
According to data from IT Juzi cited in the report, the number of companies founded in China so far this year is just 260, on track to dip below 2023's tally of 1,202 and a 99% decline from a peak of 51,302 in 2018.
VC fundraising has taken a similar dive. Yuan-denominated funds have raised the equivalent of $5.38 billion year to date, down from a peak of nearly $125 billion in 2017.
State-run VCs have recently ramped up efforts to claw back their investments from startups that became insolvent or didn't go public by a certain time.
Collection
[
|
...
]