The sharing economy has become one of the hottest trends for investment in China. Battery-charging rental service, which is considered to be the next big shared innovation, has attracted 11 tranches of financing from 35 institutions in just 40 days. A total of 1.2 billion RMB has been raised.

Statistics show that shared power bank providers including Xiaodian Technology, Laidian Technology and Hidian have all announced access to financing exceeding 100 million RMB, nearly five times the funds solicited by bike-sharing enterprises two years ago. The volume of China's sharing economy in 2016 reached 3.95 trillion RMB, increasing 76.4 percent from the previous year, according to a report on the development of the sharing economy by China E-commerce Research Center (CECRC).

The State Information Center predicted that the sector's growth will hit 40 percent in the next few years, and its transactions will account for more than 10 percent of the country's GDP. Indeed, China is already sharing almost everything, from cars to homes to umbrellas.

"The core of the sharing economy is utility rather than possession, and its initial form was the temporary transfer of unused items between strangers," said an angel investor of Xiaodian Technology.

Though capital is flowing rapidly into the sector, some investors believe the sharing economy has entered a bubble. Insiders say that some of the new sharing services have failed to present a clear profitability strategy. In addition, issues such as security and resource waste have entered the spotlight. Some consumers worry that viruses could be planted in shared products, and that shared items that are easily broken are a waste of resources.

"The sharing economy is not almighty," said Cao Lei, director of CECRC. According to Cao, further exploration needs to be carried out regarding the selection of products to be shared, the real value of sharing, and whether the separation of ownership and right to use is actually necessary.