China venture capital hits record US$131bil

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Tencent Holdings Ltd, ByteDance Ltd and ride-hailing provider Didi Global Inc were all battered in turn over the past few months.

BEIJING: When China’s government launched a sweeping crackdown on the technology industry over the summer, panicky venture capital investors stopped writing cheques and startup valuations began to plummet. It looked like the country’s historic innovation boom was over.

Then a strange thing happened: In just a matter of weeks, the startup machine kicked back into gear.