(Yicai) April 19 -- Valuations of Chinese startups that have not yet gone public are plummeting as investors need to exit and listing conditions get tougher.

The share prices of even popular companies and projects have slumped 50 percent to 80 percent from previous valuations, a number of institutional investors told Yicai.

A company that develops millimeter wave radar sensors was valued at CNY1 billion (USD138 million) in a funding round last year, but its valuation has shrunk to CNY600 million (USD83 million) this year, Lu Dan, founder of Hightable Capital, told Yicai.

Valuations of unlisted companies, including Alibaba’s logistics provider Cainiao, chip developer Cygnus Semiconductor, and even TikTok’s parent company ByteDance have all slumped.

One institutional investor bought shares of Beijing-based ByteDance at a valuation of USD210 billion on April 3, according to a third-party platform. In September 2022, investors valued it at USD300 billion.

The conditions for initial public offerings are not ideal, with Alibaba announcing on March 26 that it was pulling Cainiao’s application. The e-commerce giant said it was offering up to USD3.75 billion to buy the 36 percent of Cainiao it does not already own, valuing it at USD10.3 billion. Before this, other investors had sought to buy Cainiao’s shares at a valuation of over USD20 billion.

“In the current challenging listing environment, Cainiao’s IPO would not be in line with the group’s development strategy right now or in the foreseeable future, and any valuation that could be achieved by an IPO cannot really reflect Cainiao’s strategic value,” Alibaba Chairman Joseph Tsai said on the matter.

Shanghai-based chip developer Cygnus recently wrapped up a Series B financing round for a pre-money valuation of CNY3 billion, though it was CNY4.9 billion before its Series A fundraiser in June 2022.

Landun Photoelectron, one of Cygnus' investors, was questioned by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange because of the valuation slump. The Anhui province-based maker of speed radars and smart cameras said that the financing conditions of chip companies had generally deteriorated, so Cygnus completed its latest fundraiser quickly at a lower valuation.

Editor: Emmi Laine