Deloitte Greater Bay Area Top 40 High-Tech High-Growth Companies: Over 80% plan to raise funds in the next 2 years

Ask AI · How Does Talent Shortage Affect the Deployment of AI Technology in the Greater Bay Area?

The 2025 Deloitte Greater Bay Area High-Tech and Fast-Growing Top 40 report shows that high-tech and fast-growing companies in the Greater Bay Area have strong financing intent. Among the 30 companies surveyed in the Greater Bay Area, more than 80% plan to carry out private financing in the next two years, and about half of them focus on a funding scale of between 100 million and 500 million RMB.

On March 26, Deloitte China held the release of the results for the “2025 Top 40 High-Tech and Fast-Growing Companies in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area” (hereinafter referred to as the “Greater Bay Area Top 40”) in Hong Kong, and released the related report. The report analyzes the characteristics of fast-growing Greater Bay Area companies across four dimensions—industry, revenue, valuation, and distribution by city—and reveals the key findings of the “CEO Survey of Greater Bay Area Enterprises,” exploring the trends and challenges companies face in innovation R&D, financing plans, and business expansion.

Compared with the previous edition in 2023, the industries in which the companies in this year’s “Greater Bay Area Top 40” operate align with the current national push for “emerging pillar industries.” Biotech and healthcare combined account for 30% to rank first. Clean technology accounts for 13%, and semiconductors and artificial intelligence account for 13% and 10%, respectively.

At the same time, the revenue scale of this year’s “Greater Bay Area Top 40” companies has also increased. The share of companies in the RMB 50 million to 100 million range rose from 8% to 25%, the proportion of companies above RMB 500 million increased, while those below RMB 50 million fell from 51% to 30%. Overall valuations are all above RMB 100 million, with 14 companies between RMB 500 million and 1 billion, and 15 companies above RMB 1 billion, together accounting for nearly 80%.

In the biotech and healthcare/pharmaceuticals sectors, companies such as Cloud舟生物 and 因明生物 were selected. In the advanced manufacturing, semiconductor, and AI application sectors, companies such as 嘉立创, 思坦科技, and 钛动科技 were selected. In the clean technology and energy-related sectors, companies such as EMALDO and 创冷科技 were selected.

Image source: 2025 Deloitte Greater Bay Area High-Tech and Fast-Growing Top 40 report

According to the report, talent shortages and the deployment of AI applications have become the main challenges facing Greater Bay Area companies in technical R&D and business development.

The “CEO Survey of Greater Bay Area Enterprises” shows that R&D spending by the surveyed Greater Bay Area companies is polarized. Companies with R&D intensity below 10% account for nearly 30%, while companies with R&D intensity above 81% also account for as much as 24%—up sharply from 5% in 2023. Leading companies are accelerating efforts to tackle key technical challenges. More than 40% of enterprises have R&D personnel making up over half of their workforce, indicating a high level of attention to R&D talent. However, most surveyed companies point to talent shortages and the deployment of AI applications as the biggest challenges, reflecting shortcomings in staffing structure and commercialization capabilities.

Deloitte China’s South China managing partner 欧振兴 says that Greater Bay Area companies have strong financing intent. More than 80% of surveyed companies plan to pursue private financing over the next two years, with about half focusing on a scale of RMB 100 million to 500 million. In addition, IPO intent is leading the country; the primary destinations for listings are A-shares and Hong Kong stocks, together accounting for 76%. For business expansion, 64% of companies plan to set up within the Yangtze River Delta and the Greater Bay Area. When choosing locations, the top three factors they consider most important are market access, talent supply, and the business environment, showing that when expanding and laying out operations, companies are guided by market opportunities while also focusing on balancing operating costs.

Deloitte’s Greater Bay Area High-Tech and Fast-Growing Program managing partner 罗远江 advises that the Greater Bay Area should leverage the advantage of the “world’s No. 1” technology cluster to build an integrated innovation platform for the Bay Area, and systematically enhance source-driven innovation capabilities. Specifically, it should focus on cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, chips, and biopharmaceuticals, and plan cross-border major science facilities and joint laboratories to deepen collaboration among industry, academia, and research. At the same time, it should support key enterprises to go deep in foundational technology areas, and guide companies to move from “application lagging/imitating” to “standard setters” by improving financial tools such as science and technology innovation bills and loans secured by intellectual property, thereby strengthening the Greater Bay Area’s positioning in the global innovation landscape.

(This article comes from First Financial)