HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) – Valuations of Chinese unicorns have fallen below levels reached in the firms’ most-recent fundraising rounds, secondary market offerings by existing investors show, highlighting the strain on backers amid the coronavirus outbreak and volatile markets.
Potential acquirers of privately held shares have been more actively approached about buying into the billion-dollar startups since China started reporting high numbers of virus cases in February, said two investors offered such shares.
Face recognition technology developer SenseTime, backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, and DJI, the world’s largest commercial drone maker, have seen valuations fall 10% since funding rounds in June 2019 and April 2018 to $6.84 billion and $14.5 billion based on secondary market offerings, the people said.
Stakes in online education provider VIPKID, backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd, and bike-share firm HelloBike, backed by Ant Financial [ANTFIN.UL], have also been…
Source Reuters Tech News
Source link
