Wang Xing Ranks 3rd in Fortune’s “40 under 40”

Three CEOs of Chinese tech giants are among the top 10 of Fortune’s new “40 under 40” list released by the magazine on July 20.

Wang Xing, the 39-year-old CEO and co-chair of Meituan-Dianping, ranks the highest among all Chinese entrepreneurs at third place. Xu Li, the 36-year-old CEO of SenseTime, and Zhang Yiming, the 35-year-old CEO at ByteDance, shares the seventh place. It is the first time for all three entrepreneurs to enter the top circle.

Wang Xing.
Wang Xing. Ni yanqiang— Imaginechina

The annual list from Fortune Magazine ranks the most influential young people in spheres of business, politics, sports, and fashion. Kevin Systrom, the co-founder of Instagram and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook shares the first place this year; both American entrepreneurs are 34 years old. Co-founders of Lyft sit at the second place.

Last year, Didi Chuxing’s Cheng Wei and Jean Liu together ranked third, and Mobike’s Hu Weiwei and Xia Yiping were in the middle of the list.

Wang Xing co-founded the Groupon-like platform Meituan in January 2010. Since merging with Dianping in 2015, Meituan-Dianping has become a leading e-commerce multi-service platform and the world’s third most valuable startup. The company filed for an IPO in Hong Kong this June at an estimated valuation of $60 billion.

Xu Li
Xu Li. Imaginechina.

Xu Li’s SenseTime is now the most valuable AI startup at a valuation of over $4.5 billion. Founded in 2014, the young startup raised about $1.2 billion in two rounds this year in about two months’ time. SenseTime is a front-runner in the area of facial recognition technology, providing surveillance solutions to more than 700 corporations as well as the Chinese government.

Zhang Yiming
Zhang Yiming. Giulia Marchi—Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Zhang Yiming, the founder and chairman of ByteDance, is said to be pondering on a Hong Kong IPO for the world’s 8th largest unicorn. ByteDance is the parent company of Toutiao, China’s most popular news app with over 700 million users, and Douyin, the world’s most downloaded non-gaming iPhone app with more than 100 million monthly active users. The IPO in Hong Kong could put the company’s valuation at more than $45 billion.

Featured Image Source: Forthea.