Fan Zhang, EqualOcean Executive Director, Shared Insights on the WIA Reports and Lists

Technology Author: WIM Committee, Irina Pavlenok Editor: Luke Sheehan Dec 28, 2020 06:18 PM (GMT+8)

One of WIM2020's first speakers was Fan Zhang, who spoke as Executive director of EqualOcean about the future of technology and innovation and the release of WIA reports and lists.

Fan Zhang

On December 9-12, EqualOcean was holding the World Innovators Meet (WIM) 2020. This year, the event's main topic was 'Technology and Innovation Connect the World.' WIM2020 gathered innovators from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas to share their knowledge and key achievements, promoting the concept of 'Tech for Equal.'


"Technological innovation and sustainability are positively related to the company's value-creating ability and public market performance. A reasonable indicator system centered on innovation and sustainability contributes to wiser investment decisions," claimed Fan Zhang, Executive director of EqualOcean and lead speaker for the Leadership Chapter.

During the World Innovators Meet on the 9-12th of December, innovators from all over the world met up online to discuss the key achievements in 2020, marking out how breakthroughs are adding convenience to everyday life. Fan Zhang took part in WIM2020 from the start, leading the release of the WIA reports and lists that included listed companies, unlisted companies, innovative entrepreneurs and investment institutions.

The '30 Tech Entrepreneurs in China 2020' report includes 5 groups of people: 30 Young-gen Tech Innovators in China, 30 Science-entrepreneurs in China, 30 Female Entrepreneurs in China, 30 AI Entrepreneurs in China and 30 Foreign Entrepreneurs in China.

In this report, 90% of the young entrepreneurs are active in the technology, consumption and media fields that are closely related to China's overall market environment. China needs technology and innovation more than ever, especially Key & Core Technology. The continuous development of new information technology gives China's network better bandwidth and faster speed, and also supports a more integrated media ecosystem. Therefore, tech entrepreneurs, content innovators and live e-commerce entrepreneurs are very active now. The report also mentions that foreign entrepreneurs in China have encountered obstacles in starting a business. Therefore, Fan Zhang suggests that all entrepreneurs in China should join the WIM community to exchange and share experiences in order to better understand the Chinese market and better integrate into it.

'Rising Tech Stars' Report

In this report, EqualOcean's analyst team selects the early-stage enterprises whose market value has been at 100-500 million RMB for 5 years. These enterprises also received well-known VC investments. This year, healthcare has become the most important leading industry, and China's specialty is that many A-manufacturing and hardware enterprises have obtained financing this year, which also reflects how China's big market environment needs more advanced technology and intelligent manufacturing.

TOP 50 New Tech Leaders in 2020

This report selects 50 Unicorn companies from all over the world, categorizing them according to the companies' market value and policies of the companies' industries, including technology-driven entities, the market demand factor, the endorsement of investment institutions and so on. Among these 50 companies, more than half of Chinese companies are planning to be listed within 2 years – that will be an important reference material for investment banks and investment institutions. China's unicorns are divided into two categories: traditional enterprises and fast-growing enterprises, such as ByteDance, Didi and Kuaishou, which also have the power of capital. Other Unicorn enterprises incubated or separated from large enterprises – for example, Alibaba, Jingdong, Sunning and Tencent – have a series of such enterprises and have become technology and innovation leaders.

China's TOP PE/VC Investment Institutions in 2020

From the perspective of the whole private equity market, the number of private equity investors may rebound from the winter of 2020 onwards. Under the influence of the new environment, consumption and healthcare have become an important hot spot pursued by capital this year.

From the perspective of private equity market participants, CVC is becoming the backbone of the equity investment market. According to the data in 2019, the total CVC investment in China is 113.9 billion, but investment in the PVC market is only 760 billion, which means that one-seventh of the investment in the private equity investment market comes from VC in these enterprises. Here the purpose of their investment is to have a forward-looking investment or some complementary investment, an extension of the industrial chain, or the construction of an entire ecosystem.

Take Alibaba and Tencent as examples. Many Chinese start-ups either appear on the market or are inseparable from AT. Alibaba's market value with its listed companies and Unicorn investment, taking the total market value of shares, is 84 trillion RMB, which is very huge. Tencent, with a total market value of 11.8 trillion RMB, is also very large. CVC is becoming a very important force in the equity investment market. The entire private equity investment market hit a new high over the past five years. The largest IPO this year was the Shanghai Stock Exchange Star Market, which has a strategic significance for technology and innovation development, a practical significance for the market and a support significance for technology and innovation enterprises. Now many enterprises are being launched through the SSE Star Market.

China's TOP Public Firms in 2020

The purpose of this report is to select Chinese, Overseas, US and Hong Kong A-listed companies that show the best technological and innovative capability among all enterprises. The index system for evaluating the technological and innovative capability is divided into three dimensions:

Innovation investment includes manpower R&D investment and the growth rate of the whole R&D investment.

Innovation output includes patent quantity, profit, revenue and intangible assets.

Sustainable innovation includes corporate sustainability, environment, society and corporate governance.

The technological and innovative capability and strength of listed companies are closely related to their future growth, development potential and market value. An index system helps us find the most potential companies and the companies which will be the best for investment in the future. "When we compare the global indexes, we can find that the overall profitability and market value of 50 enterprises are far beyond the average level, including the profit margin and actual revenue. In addition to the technology and innovation industry, healthcare and consumption are the top industries nowadays." With this bird's eye view of the state of innovation and development, Fan Zhang finished his speech and brought the Leadership Chapter to a close.


About WIM

Hosted by EqualOcean, the World Innovators Meet (WIM) (click to watch the online event on December 9-11, 2020) is a global event for innovators. It provides limitless opportunities to learn from and connect with the most sought-after technology pioneers.

About WIA

The World Innovation Awards (WIA) are announced at WIM to recognize game-changers across various industries and geographies. Selected by a committee of distinguished experts, entrepreneurs and investors, WIA are designed to acknowledge technology disruptors striving to make a positive impact on a global scale.

See this year's WIA lists and download the research reports in English and Chinese on EqualOcean and 亿欧智库 respectively.