Start-ups

One of the coolest music start-ups in China, Xiami Music, simply couldn’t cut it and will close next month after management admitted it missed “crucial opportunities” in the battle with rival Tencent Music. Owned by Alibaba (which owns Inkstone), Xiami has become a cautionary tale of how a company can be beloved by the fans, but won’t be able to survive if it can’t attract the mass market.  It also marks an end of an era, harkening back to a time when the Chinese internet was less concerned about making money and more focused on building businesses with innovative ideas. Just a few years ago, Xiami was one of the top streaming platforms in China, but, in the time since, Tencent has grown to

In 2015, China’s bike-sharing start-ups were pedaling towards massive profits, thanks to billions of dollars of investment capital. Following a similar business model as Uber, but for bikes, Mobike and Ofo quickly swept across China, their colorful bikes flooding city streets as they provided an emission-free solution to China’s congestion. Both start-ups quickly became unicorns, surpassing US$1 billion in valuation each and growing to operate in about 20 countries.  But five years later, the dockless bicycle-sharing phenomenon - hailed as one of the world’s hottest start-up trends - has officially gone bust, leaving an array of big-name investors and angry riders in their wake. Last week,