Chinese “unicorns” (privately held companies valued at US$1B+) count grew to over 60 past year, and of these an astonishing 41% are being backed by four China’s largest internet companies — Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, & JD.com (or BATJ).

Within China, the figure is even higher. 46 percent of China’s unicorns are backed by BATJ. Of the four, Tencent has backed the highest number of China-based unicorns at (15). China unicorns backed by more than one of the four include food delivery platform Ele.me, ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, online insurer Zhong An Insurance, photo sharing app Kuaishou, real estate brokerage Beijing Homelink and electric vehicle maker NIO.

Apart from China, Alibaba, Ant Financial and Tencent have been most active in backing India’s tech companies. Tencent participated in the latest round to fund Flipkart and led a $175M investment to messaging app Hike in August 2016. Tencent has also made investments in Korea gaming giant CJ Games and Indonesian motorbike ride-hailing firm Go-Jek.

Global unicorns (by size)