A woman walks past the Baidu booth at the China International Technology Fair in Shanghai.

Two Chinese firms ranked in the top five corporate venture capital groups last year, in terms of number of companies in which they invested, according to a new report from CB Insights.

That was despite the ongoing trade tensions between Washington and Beijing as well as worries over an economic slowdown in China.

Corporate venture capital refers to a type of funding where corporations use investment arms to buy into start-ups. For example, Microsoft invests into enterprise software start-ups through M12, its corporate venture capital subsidiary.

CB Insights' "2018 Global CVC Report" said such firms participated in $52.95 billion worth of funding across 2,740 deals last year. To be clear, those numbers do not include strategic investments that companies made directly into start-ups.

Chinese internet giant Baidu's investment unit, Baidu Ventures, and Legend Capital, a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Legend Holdings, ranked in the top five behind Google Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and Intel Capital.