The China Top 500 Hidden Unicorn Conference is held in Hefei, capital of East China's Anhui province, on Nov 26. [Photo/WeChat account: hefeigaoxinfabu]

Hefei has 33 companies on the 2021 List of China Top 500 Hidden Unicorns, ranking 5th among Chinese cities, an upgrade in both the number of companies and ranking compared with last year, local media reported.

Of the 33 companies, 17 are based in the Hefei National High-Tech Industry Development Zone, the most innovation resource-intensive area in Anhui province.

The list was released during the China Top 500 Hidden Unicorn Conference in Hefei, capital of East China's Anhui province, on Nov 26. This year's event discussed how companies can become unicorns.

The term "hidden unicorn" refers to a sci-tech innovation company that has great potential to become a unicorn – a startup valued at $1 billion or more.

Unicorns are regarded as an important force in leading the development of new technologies as well as an indicator of regional innovation capability. As a reserve force for unicorns, hidden unicorns usually feature originality, disruptive technology, or hard-to-replicate business models.

Among the hidden unicorns on last year's list, 15 of them have gone public and 25 are now among the global top 500 unicorns.

Companies on this year's list have a combined value of 1.3 trillion yuan ($204.09 billion) and mainly come from industries like intelligent technologies, life services and healthcare.

The conference also discussed hot topics such as digital economy, technological innovation and investment funds, and sought to connect enterprises with capital and government.

Hefei has been supporting medium and small sci-tech enterprises to become national high-tech enterprises and high-growth enterprises like unicorns. The city welcomed 1,200 new national high-tech enterprises this year.