Silicon Valley might be the most famous of all startup hubs, but in 2020 Beijing was actually the ecosystem with the most unicorn companies with 93 local startups valued at $1 billion or more, including the two most valued unicorns in the world, Alibaba spin off ANT Group (valued in April at around $200 billion) and TikTok parent company ByteDance (valued at $140 billion). Though the coronavirus pandemic rattled the Chinese economy, particularly in early 2020, pandemic related disruptions also provided opportunities for Beijing based startups. With students pivoting to remote listening, China’s online education companies saw rapid growth. Yuanfudao, an EdTech giant based in Beijing, raised US$1 billion in funding. Xiaomawang, a coding education company, raised US$21.2 million. Other Chinese startups were able to thrive thanks to changing trends in consumer spending and habits driven by the pandemic. Beijing’s Calorie Technology, which operates the Keep Fitness app, surged to more than US$1 billion in value in May 2020 and boasts 200 million registered users, for instance.