The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has emerged as a key hub for propelling unicorn companies toward publicly listing, helping them achieve significant value growth and become core drivers of China's future economic development, according to a newly released list from Hurun Research Institute.
Focusing on publicly listed companies founded since 2000 with valuations exceeding $1 billion by May 15, 2025, Hurun China Unicorn Graduates 2025 was released for the first time on Thursday.
The list features 149 companies from the Greater Bay Area, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the national total, with a combined value of 3.7 trillion yuan ($531 billion). These companies span various sectors, including industrial equipment, semiconductors, renewable energy, biotechnology, and finance.
Shenzhen has 83 companies on the list, accounting for 60 percent of the Greater Bay Area, primarily in industrial equipment and new materials. Guangzhou features 24 companies, focusing on new retail and new transportation.
Dongguan has 12 companies listed, highlighting consumer electronics and robotics. Zhuhai and Hong Kong both have eight companies each, with Zhuhai centering on semiconductors and Hong Kong on finance and biotechnology.
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Notable Greater Bay Area enterprises on the list include precision manufacturer Luxshare Precision, chip manufacturer Innoscience, electric vehicle company Xiaopeng Motors, autonomous driving firm Pony.ai, low-altitude economy player EHang, financial service provider Futu Holdings, and lithium battery producer Eve Energy.
Eyeing the global market, many listed firms from the 11-city cluster are among the national leaders in overseas earnings and global presence, reflecting the region’s geographic strength in "linking with the world".
In addition, the Greater Bay Area has 72 companies on Hurun’s Global Unicorn Index 2025, accounting for half of China's top 10 unicorn firms. They include smartphone brands Honor, Oppo, and Vivo, as well as fintech player WeBank and fast-fashion retailer Shein.
Compared to the Yangtze River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Greater Bay Area, while lagging in company valuations, demonstrates stronger potential in hard tech and benefits from cross-border collaboration.
Currently, there are still relatively few publicly listed companies in emerging sectors such as the low-altitude economy and robotics. With its high-tech capabilities, the Greater Bay Area is well-positioned to capitalize on these opportunities.
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Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report Inc, said that by May 2025 China had over 1,100 companies founded after 2000 with valuations exceeding $1 billion.
Among these, 70 percent — nearly 800 firms — have gone public, while over 300 others remain unicorns.
These companies are key to understanding China's innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and are driving the country's future economic development.
He encourages unicorn companies to actively go public, as this not only injects momentum into their development and boosts their corporate value, but also provides investors with a channel to share in the growth dividends of these high-potential businesses.
