Maternal and child websites expected to make early profits under economic crisis

Under the economic crisis, mother and child website under the influence of the economic crisis, which industries can "reverse the city" to win the favor of the VCs? In the first half of this year, the vertical website of infant education has attracted the attention of VC. Analysts pointed out that although the economic situation reversed in the second half of the year, but due to the industry's "anti-cyclical", the mother and child sites are expected to advance into the profit phase.

　　Cradle Nets lead the profit

Cradle Nets vice president in the interview with our correspondent said that the cradle net this year can be the first to achieve profitability.

Cradle Net was created in Silicon Valley in 1998 in the United States, December 15, 1999 officially online. It is located in the professional maternal and infant vertical website, providing the knowledge, online service and product information from the time of preparation of pregnancy to the child's six years of age, and its revenue model is "Advertising + educational product online Payment".

December 2, the Cradle Network to "media + education" Innovative operation mode was awarded by the Silicon Valley venture capital selection of the 2008 "Red Herring Asia 100" title. Red Herring Magazine is a venture selection organization, known as the "Silicon Valley Bible", the selected "red herring Hundred" including ebay, Google, Skype and other network giants. In recent years, Red Herring focus on High-tech enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region, including networks, software, services, chip manufacturing, as well as new energy, bio-pharmaceutical and other High-tech fields, the selection criteria is to require enterprises in technology innovation, operational strategy, profitability and other three outstanding performance.

When it comes to the cradle network's "winning Reasons", Wang Touliang, vice president of the Cradle Network, said that the cradle network was "sought after" by VCs because of its innovative model, profitability and prospects for industry development.

According to the authoritative third party monitoring organization AC Nielsen Data Report shows, the Cradle network daily average browsing amount 1.8 million. Daily average number of independent visitors 210,000 times, daily average posting of nearly 7,000, upload photos 5000. In all the sites that AC Nielsen monitors, the Cradle Web page stays on the longest, and network users have the lowest number of overlapping accesses in the Cradle network, which means that the cradle network user base is an independent special user group.

Because of the large number of users attracted by the site, the business of baby-pregnant products is willing to advertise, which constitutes the main source of income for the current cradle network. On the other hand, the cradle network for young parents launched a pay personalized childcare guidance products-online parenting interactive classroom "growth ladder."

　　"Reverse cyclical" industry attracts VCS

In fact, the success of the Cradle network is simply the combination of traditional industries and E-commerce, although not new, but because of the choice of the subdivision of the field, in the economic downturn can still get a good profit base.

According to a survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, nearly 30 million newborns are born in China every year, and China is in the 4th Baby boom period. Young parents lack of scientific and convenient learning channels for childcare, the Internet because of its ease of use and popularity in China, through the Internet to learn childcare knowledge, the dissemination of childcare knowledge has a natural advantage.

It is precisely because this group will generate huge business opportunities, many sites are scrambling to tackle this niche, while venture capitalists are also speeding up the pace of investment.

March 10, 2008, the baby tree announced a total of 10 million U.S. dollars in the second round of financing successfully completed, for the original shareholders of the additional investment; 10 days later, the Cradle Network announced the third round of financing success, to obtain 17.1 million U.S. dollars, in addition to the original shareholder Sutter Hill Ventures, Foundation Capital and NSA investments became new investment Partners in addition to the Fund's large investments, and almost at the same time, "mother said" (www.0-6.com), another maternal and child website, confirmed the completion of the first round of 20 million dollar financing, The source of funds is Germany and capital.

Relevant data show that the threshold of such a site is low, a large number of, but due to the initial site of the capital dependence is very large, so the current industry development differentiation is obvious, the industry leader cradle nets, baby trees and other competitors, the gap between more and more big, monopolistic situation basically formed.

Wang Touliang Frankly, under the impact of the economic crisis, the next year is expected to launch the relevant advertising may have a certain degree of reduction. But the investor will not put too much pressure on it because it has already made a profit earlier this year.

"To be honest, we haven't spent any money on this round of funding, mainly for the next step in developing more online education products, so we're not going to refinance in the future," he said. I expect income from paid online classes to grow further next year, because young parents are willing to invest in this and are cheap and effective, and we will not be spending too much money next year, so we can expect to continue to expand next year. "Wang Touliang said.

Looking ahead to profitability