Behind the wave of financing in the mobile Internet industry

Tencent technology Xiuxian Qian June 9 reported

After the Dragon Boat Festival, today's headlines, fast teeth, aunt you, next door, Mushroom Street and many other well-known mobile App has disclosed its own latest financing and valuation of the status quo, the recent mobile Internet financing industry trend regardless of the amount or density Far more than a few years the industry average, there are indications that the capital feast of mobile Internet is slowly opened.

Such intensive financing, singing it CEO Chen Hua appears to be a kind of "Alibaba's pre-IPO capital crazy." Investment environment is clearly not a business around, but the investment rebound has indeed become a fact. Earlier this year, Zero2IPO Research Center provided a survey of Institutional LPs (Limited Partners in Financial Investment) in 2014 and found that the mobile Internet has been recognized by institutional LPs as high as 85.7%, making it the hottest investment hot spot for institutional LP this year .

Fast teeth Vice President Zhu Yanchen revealed that the current capital environment and resources and environment are very good. "Many companies listed last year or by Tencent, Baidu and other acquisitions of BAT, VC and LP hands have a lot of cash."

In addition to having enough capital for VCs to make significant investments into the mobile Internet, another notable phenomenon is the generosity of valuations. For example, Mushroom Street was valued at 200 million U.S. dollars after the first two rounds of financing. However, only 8 months after the transition to vertical e-commerce, Mushroom Street's valuation has increased to 5 times, reaching 1 billion.

Shi-Bo, chairman of Shanghai Shangya Investment Management Co., believes that the valuation system of the mobile internet is not the same as the valuation method in the past compared to the traditional enterprises. The standard for valuing traditional businesses is profitability first, while mobile internet is based on the growth of user and user value. User growth and the growth of value itself are also vague, this round of intensive financing inevitably have a certain degree of valuation bubble exists.

While these mobile Internet companies are in the midst of a valuation bubble, new mobile Internet applications are less likely to have the same opportunities as many of these enterprises to gain access to a large number of users. In a sense, the stronger the mobile Internet and the weaker the mobile Internet Matthew effect has begun to show that, for mobile Internet players, the time window is decreasing.

VC focused on hunting mobile Internet

In the first half of this year, VC was significantly different from the "injured" in the second half of last year. In the second half of last year, it was difficult for VCs to withdraw because of the radical investment in mobile Internet such as Sequoia Capital, Jingwei Venture Capital, IDG and other institutions, and the growth of the mobile Internet less than expected. They no longer rush to invest in new projects.

In the meantime, strategic investors are active. A large number of mobile Internet App companies such as Drip, Fast, Fast Hotel Butler, Cicada, PP Assistant and so on are all included in the strategic investors such as Tencent, Ali, Ctrip and UC.

The fieryness of smart items such as smart hardware gives the mobile Internet new meaning. Investors have noticed that the value of the mobile Internet is not limited to itself. In addition to the self-realization such as mobile games, the value of mobile Internet applications in connecting O2Os, smart hardware, smart home and automobiles has started to appear in addition to traditional profit models such as advertising.

Whether it is the peak trough of the capital market or the revaluation of the value of the mobile Internet, the phenomenon that VC and PE did not cast their vote in the second half of last year has been concentrated in the first half of this year.

After the Dragon Boat Festival, the first to make financing disclosure is the news headlines today, June 4, today the headlines officially announced its Sequoia led the vote, Sina microblogging with cast C 100 million US dollars, the financing valuation of 5 One hundred million U.S. dollars. The high valuation has also triggered discussions about the top-line model today. The legal risks of copyright and the debate over the authenticity of technology-driven issues have triggered a battle between the new media and the old media and have not stopped.

Shortly afterwards, Fast File, the mobile phone file sharing tool, announced the completion of a new round of financing on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival. The round of financing was led by IDG, Innovative Workshop and Northern Lights with a total investment of more than 20 million U.S. dollars.

June 5, the aunt of women's menstrual management software, announced the acquisition of $ 30,000,000 C round of financing. The current round of investment by the strategic source venture capital investment, Sequoia Capital and Bertelsmann with the vote.

On the same day, another newly-started stranger social software announced that it has completed the round A financing of 15 million U.S. dollars. The investors are Qiming Venture Capital and Chenxing Venture Capital, and Zero2IPO Capital is the exclusive financial advisor for this round of financing.

On June 6, the financing and valuation of the disclosure of Muguan Street shopping guide network even exceeded the industry's psychological expectations. Mushroom Street announced that it has won over $ 200 million in round C financing with a valuation of $ 1 billion. Comparing the previous financing and valuation data, the first two rounds of financing in 20 million US dollars, mushroom Street valued at 200 million US dollars. But eight months after the transition to vertical e-commerce, Mushroom Street's valuation has increased to 5 times.

Insiders disclosed that in the next few months, there will be more cases of huge mobile Internet financing will be disclosed. Valuations are much higher than in the past, he said, the main reason for the valuation increase is due to the slowdown in the development of mobile Internet, the rapid growth of fewer and fewer projects, which means that once the "successful" has been hard to be Easy to replace.

The mobile Internet industry appeared Matthew effect

From an entrepreneurial perspective, there is a real need for more financing to deal with the more brutal competition in the market.

In the aunt CEO Chai Ke, starting this year, smart phone shipments decline, mobile Internet application installation incremental market growth will slow down, for these already have a certain size of the Mobile App, the main competition this year Focus on the retention of the stock market.

Declining smartphone shipments, smaller incremental opportunities for mobile distribution platforms such as handsets and app markets, and an overall slowdown in mobile app distribution increases overall, in which case the new App would like to receive the same benefits from 2012 to 2013 The new user speed has been very difficult, it is difficult impulse. "The new App is hard to get together." Chai can feel emotion.

This may also explain why the recent disclosures that companies that have been financed are either rounds B or C. For example, today's headlines and aunt are C round financing, fast tooth is B round of financing, the newer is the A round of financing. Sing the next round of financing is about to C round of stage.

"Good projects are already expensive or have been invested or controlled by BAT and have sustained growth, with business models and very few projects with integrated teams." Zhu Yanchen believes the startup team now looks more likely to be Matthew effect on the vicious circle, the strong Hengqiang, weak weakness.

Already have tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of users of the application heel is not so stable, and their common feature is that the new financing are used for technical input, build their own moat.

Chai can be disclosed, this round of financing will be the main products, users and brands in three directions to expand. Grinding products to further tap the big data generated by mass health users, recruiting more talent, to become one of the important directions, the other is to integrate potential users, the user retention.

Today's headlines also said that this round of financing is used to increase technical input and build a sound mobile Internet content ecosystem.

Fast tooth investment focused on overseas market investment, such as Southeast Asia, these population, cell phone density, poor network links, traffic tariff expensive areas, fast tooth will be the next force in the direction of development. Mushroom Street, a new round of financing will be invested to enhance the consumer experience, business platform construction and team development.

This means that the new mobile Internet games to play more and more difficult, but, like the PC Internet era, and then strong moat are difficult to hinder the development and growth of the Forces nouvelles, but the trial and error costs will be more and more high.