STAR Market now home to 100 listed companies

One hundred firms are now currently listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market, China’s new innovation-oriented board founded last year.

The STAR Market is considered a major step toward deepened reforms in China's A-share market. It has also become an attractive platform for high-profile Chinese tech companies to get listed at home.

Hangzhou-based Raycloud, a technology service provider for e-commerce firms, became the 100th firm on the STAR Market following its public trading debut on Wednesday.

Among the listed firms, the majority are involved in professional instruments, computing, telecommunications, semiconductors, medicine, new materials, software and information services.

STAR Market innovations allow dual-share structures and spin-offs among listed firms.

Among all listed firms, 40 have a market value over 10 billion yuan (US$1.43 billion). Two are valued at over 100 billion yuan — Beijing Kingsoft Office Software with a market value of 121 billion yuan and Montage Technology Co, a Shanghai-based semiconductor firm, with a value of 110.9 billion yuan as of Thursday.

On average, STAR-listed firms invest 12 percent of revenue into research, while 20 percent of them spend over 20 percent, well above average for firms listed on other boards.

In April, the local exchange and regulators clarified market entry requirements, evaluation standards and other criteria for listing candidates.

The valuation standards add clarity to the IPO process, which will cut costs and time for IPO preparations, according to analysts.