Zhihu
- 🦄Became a unicorn2019
- 📈Peak valuation$5 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a Unitard~2022
- 💸Last valuation~$400M
How it happened
Zhihu is a leading Chinese online question-and-answer community — often called 'the Quora of China' — where users ask and answer questions and follow expert content across technology, business and culture. Backed by Tencent, Sinovation Ventures, Qiming and Sequoia China, it became a unicorn in private rounds and then listed on the NYSE in March 2021 at roughly a $5B valuation. Beijing's crackdown on its tech sector, a weak online-advertising market and the broad sell-off in U.S.-listed Chinese stocks battered Zhihu, cutting its market capitalization to only a few hundred million dollars — around $0.4B, a small fraction of its peak.
Source: SEC filings / stockanalysis (Chinese question-and-answer and content community, the 'Quora of China,' backed by Tencent, Sinovation Ventures, Qiming and Sequoia China; reached a ~$5B valuation at its March 2021 NYSE IPO after earlier private rounds made it a unicorn; Beijing's tech crackdown, a weak online-ad market and the ADR sell-off cut its market value to a few hundred million dollars, around $0.4B)
