On September 10, 2017, Greatwall Enterprise Institute ( GEI ) released the "2017 Chinese FinTech Unicorn Enterprise Development Report" ("Report" for short) at the 2017 Chinese FinTech Conference in Hangzhou.

The Report released the list of "Unicorns" and "Quasi Unicorn" companies in Chinese FinTech field in 2017, thoroughly analyzed the current status of FinTech Unicorns and looked forward to the development trend.

The report shows that the FinTech Unicorn presents four distinct characteristics:

First, the amount is large and the valuation is high. Till June 2017, there are 21 FinTech unicorns and 24 quasi-unicorns in China, of which the total value is 143.31 billion U.S. dollars, and have become the largest outbreak point of unicorn valuation scale in all fields.

Second, new and rapid development, according to statistics, 88.9% of FinTech (quasi) Unicorn enterprises were established after the year 2000, especially the companies established only 2 to 3 years, their innovative ability, short growth cycle, and other explosive growth characteristics are more prominent.

Third, the wide range of applications make FinTech unicorns widely influential in various segments of financial services. Among them, unicorns have concentrated their efforts on Internet loans and integrated financial services through a platform-based development model, while technical service-oriented character has become an important feature of Quasi Unicorn enterprise, which are more focused on technology development and financial information services.

Fourth, the distribution is more concentrated, "Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen" are the accumulated place of FinTech Unicorn. It is noteworthy that although the 4 cities have fostered a large number of unicorn enterprises with their advantages in resources and environment, FinTech (quasi) Unicorn enterprises have also emerged in Dongguan, Chengdu and Chongqing.

The "Report" pointed out that in the future, Chinese FinTech industry development will show five major trends:

First, platform will continue to dominate the development of FinTech, but in the meantime, a group of technology-based entrepreneurs have already become new strength for the development of FinTech.

Second, under the influence of FinTech, the traditional financial industry suffers great shock and FinTech can be expected to lead reform in consumer credit, wealth management and risk prevention & control.

Third, benefiting from the development of FinTech, micro-demand Finance will generate huge profits.

Fourth, following the big data, cloud services and mobile payments, artificial intelligence and blockchain have become new hot spots in technology development. In the future, the FinTech industry will shift from data competition to data + technology competition.

Fifth, under the background of state regulation, the development of FinTech faces both challenges and opportunities. Since the ever-increasing regulatory pressure has brought about tremendous technological needs, the technology-based FinTech enterprises are facing rare opportunities for development.

"2017 Chinese FinTech Unicorn Enterprise Development Report"