China's AI, Chip, Health Tech Firms Averted 'Capital Winter' in Late 2018, Report Says
Xu Wei
DATE:  Jul 12 2019
/ SOURCE:  yicai
China's AI, Chip, Health Tech Firms Averted 'Capital Winter' in Late 2018, Report Says China's AI, Chip, Health Tech Firms Averted 'Capital Winter' in Late 2018, Report Says

(Yicai Global) July 12 -- Artificial intelligence and chips, as well as healthcare and education sectors, have bucked the downward trend of a fundraising squeeze among Chinese internet companies in the second half of the defiantly buoyant 2018.

High-tech regarding AI, semiconductors, health, and online education led the gains while most of Chinese internet firms faced a "capital winter," garnering shrinking investments as the business environment got tighter due to regulation and macroeconomic factors, the Internet Society of China said in a report released yesterday.

In the third quarter, internet investments fell 45 percent from the previous year to USD15.3 billion in total. In the fourth quarter, the amount fell 9 percent further to USD13.9 billion. The biggest fields were digital finance, e-commerce, tourism and online education. 

However, for the whole year, the value of investments rose 44 percent from the previous year while the volume of fundraising activities more than doubled to nearly 2,700.

More than one-half of Chinese internet firms that went public in Hong Kong and the US last year chose to go for the lower end of their target ranges regarding initial public offering share prices. Nearly 80 percent of them dropped to trade lower at the end of 2018 than on their first days of trading. Almost one-fifth of them halved their market caps from that day one.

Editor: Emmi Laine 

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Keywords:   Chinese Internet Firms,Liquidity Squeeze