36Kr "2026 Top 100 Most Valuable Growing Enterprises" Officially Released

The era is never defined by onlookers. It only unfolds among those who are growing.

Today, when people discuss Huawei, ByteDance, DJI, Tesla, or OpenAI, it's easy to overlook the fact that before becoming industry leaders, they were all growing startups.

In the early days, they had no natural market position, no mature business system, and were not necessarily favored by everyone. However, through continuous technological breakthroughs and product iterations, they gradually transformed from "challengers" into "definers."

The business history is essentially a history of growth. The companies that ultimately reshape the industry landscape are often not those with the highest starting points, but those that continuously accumulate technological, organizational, and market capabilities in the long - term competition.

Currently, a new wave of technological innovation is giving rise to more new tracks and new patterns. Based on this, in April this year, 36Kr launched the "Top 100 Most Valuable Growing Enterprises in 2026" selection, aiming to find innovative enterprises that can adapt to industrial changes, build long - term core competitiveness, and continuously create business and industrial value.

This selection lasted for more than two months, and hundreds of enterprise applications were received in total. Starting from five major dimensions of growth ability, technological strength, capital strength, industrial strength, and influence, and focusing on core indicators such as revenue and order growth, R & D investment and patent accumulation, institutional recognition and financing rhythm, global layout and industrial chain position, and team integrity, we conducted multiple rounds of cross - verification and independent reviews, and finally selected 100 growing benchmark enterprises that define the future.

If we draw a group portrait of these 100 short - listed enterprises, we will find several interesting data and characteristics.

In terms of geographical distribution, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai rank in the top three in terms of quantity, contributing 26, 21, and 14 enterprises respectively. The short - listed enterprises in Beijing and Shanghai are mostly concentrated in fields such as artificial intelligence/large models, advanced manufacturing/robotics/industrial automation, and biomedicine/medical devices; while Shenzhen and Guangzhou are strong in fields such as consumer technology/brand going global and new energy vehicles/intelligent connected vehicles.

In terms of establishment time, the average age of the short - listed enterprises is only 5.5 years, and most of them were founded after 2020. Among them, there are both "endurance - type" players who have survived the "capital winter" and completed technological verification, and "explosive" dark horses founded after 2022 that have caught the technological inflection point.

In terms of growth rate, more than 70% of the enterprises have a revenue or order growth rate of over 100% in the past 12 months. Among them, the proportion of enterprises with a growth rate of over 300% is as high as one - third. These enterprises are mainly concentrated in the robotics, semiconductor, and commercial aerospace tracks, and are at a critical inflection point from "technological verification" to "large - scale commercialization."

In addition to the data, we also paid attention to the underlying logic driving growth. The following are three significant trends we found in the research.

"Top scientists + industry veterans" have become the standard for hardcore entrepreneurship

Ten years ago, the portrait of an excellent founder was still "senior executives from large companies + serial entrepreneurs," but today, the combination of "top scientists + industry veterans" has gradually become the standard for hardcore entrepreneurial teams.

The founders have top - notch academic backgrounds (Ph.D., post - doctoral, and graduated from prestigious overseas universities), and the core partners come from front - line industrial companies, with practical experience in large - scale mass production, supply chain management, or global sales.

The boundaries between industry, academia, and research are being redefined by entrepreneurship itself. Research data shows that more than 65% of the core teams of the short - listed enterprises have both "Ph.D. degrees" and "ten - year industrial experience," and more than 45% of them have R & D resumes from leading technology companies. Especially in "deep - water" tracks such as quantum computing and brain - computer interfaces, this configuration is almost a prerequisite for entry.

The capital logic is evolving, from "raising funds" to "raising the right funds"

In 2026, when the capital winter has not completely subsided, the financing ability is still the lifeline of growing enterprises, but the logic of capital is quietly changing.

From the financing data of the short - listed enterprises, two characteristics are very obvious.

First, the proportion of enterprises at or before the Series B round exceeds 60%. This means that truly potential growing enterprises do not need to wait until after the Series C round to be recognized. The quality of early - stage investment is becoming a key criterion for measuring an institution's vision.

Second, industrial capital is ubiquitous. Among the short - listed enterprises in the statistics, industrial investors appeared in more than 80% of the financing rounds, including automobile manufacturers, battery factories, consumer electronics giants, chemical groups, and medical device companies. Industrial capital brings not only money but also scenarios, customers, supply chains, and verification opportunities.

For pure financial investment institutions, the competition is becoming more intense. Simply providing funds and post - investment empowerment is no longer enough to impress top founders. What they need is "smart money" that truly understands the industry and can bring orders and technological synergy.

Entering the era of "born global"

Among the 100 short - listed enterprises in this selection, we found that more than 60% of them had simultaneously laid out overseas markets at the beginning of their establishment, starting both in the domestic and overseas markets in parallel.

The overseas layout of these enterprises is not simply about selling products overseas, but also involves aspects such as setting up R & D centers, local production, international standard certification, and even registering overseas subsidiary companies. North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East are the most important target regions.

The research also found that among the short - listed enterprises, those with overseas layouts and operating in multiple markets generally have a higher proportion of R & D investment. This also shows to some extent that the more globalized an enterprise is, the stronger the technological barrier it needs; and a stronger technological barrier, in turn, can support higher pricing power and deeper globalization.

In the past two decades, the main theme of Chinese business has been "scale and efficiency," which was the golden age of application - layer innovation, with numerous giants and a winner - takes - all situation.

However, by 2026, this main theme is gradually losing its edge. The extensive growth driven solely by traffic is no longer sustainable, and the window for model innovation is narrowing. The real competitiveness is beginning to shift towards underlying technologies.

We are delighted to see that these 100 short - listed enterprises have not stopped at the stage of involution but have set their sights on improving technological density. At this moment, they may not all be in the spotlight, but they are undoubtedly becoming the definers of the next new industrial pattern.

The following is the complete list of the "Top 100 Most Valuable Growing Enterprises in 2026":