China's tech startups face funding slowdown

China’s technology startups were red-hot for years. Today, the catchphrase among some in the industry to describe the funding environment is “deep winter,” according to The Wall Street Journal. In the first half of 2016, 173 new venture-capital funds in China raised $11.8 billion, down 42% and 14% respectively from the same period last year, according to pedata.cn, a financial database run by Beijing-based research firm Zero2IPO Group. Venture capitalists made a total of 1,264 investments, down one-third from a year earlier. Among the 1,052 where deal size was disclosed, the amount totaled 58.5 billion yuan, down 13%. Early-stage startups are suffering the most from dwindling funding, while later-stage companies are adapting to the new environment by cutting costs and controlling cash flow.