China’s tech darlings have been on a tear

AMERICA’S TECHNOLOGY unicorns, as privately held startups worth $1bn or more are known, seem to lose their magic as soon as they go public. The market capitalisation of Uber is down by almost half since it listed in May. Lyft has shed a bit more even than its bigger ride-hailing rival. Neither is remotely profitable. Slack, a corporate-messaging service, lost $360m in its first quarter as a public company, over ten times more than as a private one a year earlier. Its share price has slid, too (see chart).

China also has its own tech duds. Shares in Xiaomi, a maker of smartphones and gadgets, are worth half of their offering price last July. But other Chinese unicorns have managed to retain some of their mojo.