Chinese online financing service provider Rong360.com, working with other organizations, published a report on trends in the Chinese crowdfunding industry in 2016, Beijing News reported on Wednesday.
Rong360’s report says there were 303 crowdfunding platforms in 21 provinces by the end of 2015. 125 new crowdfunding platforms were founded and 32 platforms closed down in 2015.
Crowdfunding platforms have been growing rapidly in China since the first crowdfunding platform was founded in 2011.
Internet financing is becoming a popular way to raise money. 142 crowdfunding platforms were founded in 2014 and 125 new platforms emerged in 2015. However, the report shows that 32 platforms closed down by the end of 2015.
Of the 303 platforms currently operating, there are 121 equity crowdfunding platforms, 104 product crowfunding platforms and five nonprofit crowdfunding platforms.
There are 63 platforms based in Beijing. 38 of them are equity crowdfunding platforms.
The largest crowdfunding platforms include China’s second largest e-commerce platform JD.com’s crowdfunding platform, the Alibaba-backed 36Kr, and AngelCrunch.
Rong360 was launched in March 2012. It received Series D funding of RMB one billion (USD 166 million) last October. The company claims to have a valuation of over USD 1.6 billion, which raises it to unicorn status.
(Top photo from Baidu Images)