NEA Xiaodong: Investor Facebook

Abstract: Unlike many foreign funds, N E a All funds are owned by the headquarters of the unified operation, whether the investment project depends on the headquarters of the Investment committee, Xiaodong occupies a seat. Currently, the ratio of N E A to China is about 10% to 15%, roughly the same as India's.

NEA, global partner and managing director of China, joined NEA in 2005 to create a team in Beijing and Shanghai.

Investor Facebook

He, in high school had attended the liberal arts class, the language never under 90 points, English has been very good, Gao on the test 670, is interested in the history, the politics is the perfect score. But then was "to persuade" to science classes, the university learned computer.

He thinks, VC this technical live, a little smart a bit basic person, one months will be finished, very simple. The rest is not "surgery", it is Tao.

In addition to the problem of dishonesty, he is tolerant of any type of people, every day swearing, very strong, speech very blunt, the accounts of the special fine, are no problem.

Ask what kind of entrepreneur he likes to see best. Dream is not a dream, is to pay, sacrifice, some short-term benefits, sometimes family life, sometimes even dignity.

And many foreign funds are different, N E a All funds are owned by Headquarters Unified operation, whether the investment project depends on the headquarters of the Investment committee, Xiaodong occupies a seat. Currently, the ratio of N E A to China is about 10% to 15%, roughly the same as India's.

In the style of investment, there have been two types of investment companies in the United States: Silicon Valley's investment firms are mostly individualistic, and each partner is an all-around athlete who helps the invested enterprise do everything; in Boston, the investment company is a typical team-mix, part of an investment partner, Part of the Operation Partners, together to help companies grow.

In this view, N EA is a typical Silicon Valley model. Plus Xiaodong, the only partner, N E a China team has only 5 people, everyone independently on investment.

The small number of teams reflected in the investment rhythm is that N E a maintains a yearly progress of 3-5 projects. Last year, N E a China invested 3 companies, and this year's plan is still 3.

"Small team, no clear division of labor, but can not say" scattered ", luck appearance. "Xiaodong's view on downsizing is that the project team fits on a specific case, and that, as with other funds, there is a difference between finding the project's perspective."

Compared to the "group Wolf Tactics" of the peer cast nets, N E A is more willing to do subtraction, in a certain period of attention to a subdivision of the field, professional from the industrial chain to comb out good companies. In this regard, N EA also attracted the former deputy minister of Science and Technology Songde as N EA Risk Partners, the project.

"These days, just kidding, who am I who who, everyone eat rice, go to karaoke o K, who eat that set?" If in the first 1.5 hours can not impress each other, basically difficult to talk about. "He thinks that both the business and the investors are not right or wrong, he wants to high you want to low, find no common ground, can find the intersection, is how you communicate with each other, and the premise is not only skills, but also professional."

Take the medicine industry for example. N E A first cast is the distribution enterprise, through it to understand the entire pharmaceutical market, a single number of drug companies, and then through the drug companies to understand the hospital situation, and invest in radiotherapy for medical equipment and services companies, but also invested in a cancer hospital, inter-related.

"This way can quickly accumulate knowledge, information, contacts and other foundations, and more importantly, let us really understand the industry." "Xiaodong said that the investment in medicine to investors more professional requirements, although they are not a medical professional origin, but the investment in the background, such as cancer, whether it is medicine, or diagnostic equipment, services, they are really more than the average person to understand a lot." He also take his own "shot" as an example, now is generally serious with 5 cases to cast 1, is not casually cast, more of their own initiative to find, behind the cost of a lot of mind to understand.

Don't do it together.

In China, the investment direction of N E A is slightly different than that in Europe and America, technology, medical treatment and consumption are the three major fields. With many peers, like the idea, N EA Investment foothold in the industrial chain layout, like to do platform investment, not only to invest in a company, hope that through the investment companies to the relevant industries upstream, downstream to extend, integrated industrial chain.

For example, in the field of technology, N E A has invested in the semiconductor manufacturing core International, there is a mobile phone chip design of the exhibition communications, to do mobile TV chips of the Thai king Technology, and mobile phone payment business repeatedly technology; in medicine, from cancer diagnosis and treatment services to the Sea Jiya medical care, to do pharmaceutical drugs, drug resistance, to do medicine preparations of the drug industry, To pharmaceutical distributors Citic Medicine, industrial chain is very clear context.

In addition, N EA in the investment does not like the fashion, glut, never do a stampede of things, patiently waiting, even if the project is sometimes not optimistic.

The communication of the exhibition is an example.

In 2004, a handful of VC-led start-ups injected 35.2 million of billions of dollars into the start-up company, adding a year later. When investing, N E A is bullish on the growth of China's mobile phone market and the Chinese returnee entrepreneurship team, with 43 entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.

"In the 2004, the emergence of Shanzhai machines, emerging markets were opened, exported to Africa, and then the 3G licences delayed, to the final set." Coupled with the restructuring of the operator, the rapid rise of smartphones in 2008, and the rapid mention of high-end mobile phones, the whole market has changed dramatically. Xiaodong shrugged, saying that the world's previous manufacturers of chips were still doing it today, or had not been restructured, and several of the remaining two or three. Over the years, N E A has been trying to support the exhibition, especially in the worst of the 2008, the financial crisis coupled with operational issues, the 2007 listed companies, 2008, the lowest share price fell to 2 yuan, a net loss of about 80 million U.S. dollars, many people do not look at it. and 3 years later in 2011, the company's profits have been between 1.5-200 million U.S. dollars, China's largest and most profitable chip companies.

"We say bullish on a fast growing market, but the growth of the market is not static." In the midst of change, how do you look for opportunities, find opportunities, and then be patient and have a chance to succeed. "Waiting for seven or eight years, this project has brought a very good return to n E A."

Citic Medicine is also a drug-circulation company that does not have many people bullish but appears to be "different" in Xiaodong.

In the 2008, few people voted for the pharmaceutical industry. The first is the low margin, the gross margin of sales is only 6%-7%, is fast circulation, the second is related to the hospital settlement cycle relationship, often negative cash flow operation, although 30% growth per year, but also face various challenges.

At that time, the new health reform was not introduced. But Xiaodong and the team are sensitive to the trend, even if it is impossible to determine the specific time of the new health reform. Moreover, the first action of health reform is integration, the integration of the brunt is the circulation industry, marketing industry.

"The industry has statistics that China has 7,500 pharmaceutical companies, the United States and Japan have only 3, this thing to the end must be a big integration." Xiaodong said that the investment in Citic medicine at that time was to make it an integrated platform.

It turned out that N E-A was not only the right idea, but also that health reform was faster than they had expected. 2009, the new health reform, in October, China's largest drug distributor of Chinese Medicine holdings in Hong Kong listed. The company is the flagship of the central enterprises, and market integration is rapidly emerging. In Xiaodong's view, Citic Medicine, although it did not become the integration of other people's enterprises, but in this industry, is one of the few non-state-owned enterprises. Later, Citic Medicine by Shanghai Medicine (601607, shares bar) to nearly 4 billion acquisitions, become the pharmaceutical industry's largest mergers and acquisitions in 2010, only two years time to bring N E a great return. "We usually want to do these things, and we go into it when we're either not looking at it, or we don't see it in some industries, or when there aren't too many people looking at the lows." This is style. ”

In fact, there are many such examples. (Southern Metropolis Daily Www.nddaily.com Southernmetropolisdailymark)

The most classic is group buying. N E A in the United States is G roupon the earliest institutional investors, 2008, 2009 years to its injection, after listing it is the largest shareholder. Logically speaking, n e a from the G ro u P o N body benefits very good, but in China up to now, N e a did not invest in group buying enterprises.

"Of course, this does not mean not to invest, at least in 2009 group buying surging, we did a lot of research, or did not vote." Xiaodong said, the essence of investment is two things, one is the growth of the enterprise itself, the second is to enter and exit the timing of the grasp. "At any rate, we don't usually have a lot of people in the newspaper and we're going to throw it every day." ”

Thanks to this, N E A has invested more than 300 million dollars in 21 projects since entering China, and the money from the four or five exit cases has all been cash back.

Favor "Reverse innovation"

Xiaodong a liberal arts class in high school, and was later "discouraged" to science classes, and the university learned computer. In the liberal arts class, his language has never been 90 points, English has been very good, Gao on the test of 670, interested in history, political is a full score. To this day, his liberal arts base is still on the investment columns he has written for some of the media, poetry, history clips, excellent writing.

In his column, he has repeatedly mentioned an interesting concept, "reverse innovation." His explanation is to nurture a business model with the unique business environment and market environment of emerging markets, and then this business model can turn into the world.

In fact, in the investment of N E A, there are many reverse innovation representatives.

For example, the above-mentioned communications, it relies on Shanzhai machine started, of course, also has a strong technical strength. Its path is exactly the opposite of traditional outsourcing.

What is a cottage machine? A special Chinese-style thing. Xiaodong said that once mobile phone boss Nokia, has a completely vertical chain, from parts manufacturing, research and development, vending machines, a total of 120,000 people, like a corps-style management. And in China, how many people are there in Shenzhen? How many people are there in the Pearl River delta? Maybe millions of people are not. These 1 million people, unlike Nokia, have a tightly managed approach and are completely loosely structured. Nokia two or three years ago to push a product needs 9-12 months, Shenzhen to do a cell phone basically take a sack of money to go, and then find an industrial design person to design, a month or two delivery of goods.

Xiaodong the background of the reverse innovation from the unique business environment. A completely different model and method has spawned a completely different market.

"Without the birth of a cottage market, there is no such thing as MediaTek and the company." "He said that the Shanzhai market to create a new business chain, business model, Chinese mobile phones from the cottage, parallel imports of mobile phones dumped abroad, to the current brand-name machine fully occupied the low-end market overseas, a total of several years time. "I think this is the reverse innovation of the market, without China's market environment, it can not cultivate such an ecological chain, there is no such ecological chain, and can not in turn occupy the international market." ”

And the reverse innovation of the drug industry in Asia is that it is hit by overseas markets into the domestic market.

The drug industry is a generic drug, and several medicines are approved by US F D A, the first Chinese pharmaceutical company to sell finished products to the United States.

You can understand it is outsourcing, but certainly not simply outsourcing, Xiaodong played an analogy. "Medicine is a special commodity, highly regulated, not like shoes, do socks, so the entire enterprise's ability, not only hardware conditions, more important is the software conditions, talent, technology, process, quality control, etc., all aspects of high requirements." "In particular, the United States to meet the conditions of F D A, China's total of two enterprises to achieve, and Asia is one of them."

After the core competencies of the Asian Union were created, they are now exploring the U.S. market. Eventually, however, it will also embark on the Chinese market.

In the eyes of Xiaodong, a very special environment in China, there are many industries can cultivate such as the exhibition, the joint Asia pharmaceutical companies, and then the reverse innovation model to the world market. "I think China has more opportunities in manufacturing, and L E D is an area. ”

Reject tagging

Xiaodong is a person who doesn't like to be labeled.

He often encountered such a situation, because N E A is a pure dollar fund, so many people are considered to have the dollar "D N A", asking how to solve the problem of localization. His view was that there was nothing in the dollar D n A and the renminbi D n A, localization is to find opportunities locally, to understand the entrepreneur, to help enterprises grow together, and finally in the local business environment, so that enterprises to achieve success, investors receive returns, not to say that this person wears a gown or a suit, what dialect accent.

"To make money in the local is localized, not to make money in the local, no matter how long the person, high nose blue eyes, or the Chinese face, in fact, not adapt to the local business environment." The result is the only stone. ”

N E a refuses to label and is also reflected in the expansion of the two or three-line market.

In recent years, many of the domestic investment agencies claimed to flee north wide deep, that these local gruel, good companies are hard to find, have shifted their sight to the two or three-line market. Xiaodong on the layout of a few lines of the city is very indifferent.

"I never thought of going to a few lines of the city. "He thinks which industry to look after, first will go to find out, and then ask himself a question, if I go to start a business to do this, what will do?" finally came to the conclusion, using a magnifying glass to find the most similar to their own ideas of enterprises and entrepreneurs. The enterprise may be in Guangzhou, Beijing, also may be in Nantong, Jinhua, a few lines of market is not important, it is not to look for the standards of enterprises, nor investment and not the division of the standard.

The investment Market Xiaodong unique, in the life he is quite pursue in tune with.

Often they are not at the airport, they are on their way to the airport. Many people use this phrase to describe the busy life of investors, applied to Xiaodong, it is not exaggerated. The average three or four days fly once, a year's ticket more than hundred, a small amount of free time just to eat with friends, reading, fitness.

"The most important thing in life is not the busy and the idle, but the rhythm, the rhythm is not fast and slow, but in tune with." "He works, there will be C asual things in the inside, in addition to go on vacation, no real sense of leisure, the key to see how to master the beat." Scoring for himself? He says the state of the moment is basically in sync.

On Weibo, however, Xiaodong's handful of speeches seem less "attuned" to the buzz of many investors.

Originally, he did not intend to open Weibo, the next person said people have opened, why do not you open a? So he opened one, but really didn't write. "I think it's a different kind of personal communication style and microblogging style," he said. "Xiaodong said he did not like fast, bang suddenly write one, write one another, he would rather sit down to write an article."

However, many investors have used Weibo as a "hooking up" investment project tool AH?

"Is it not good to keep a little mystery?" he said. He said.

Specialist hospital, wind-cast prey

New mileage Hospital, located in Beijing, is a new mileage hospital group and Beijing Cancer Hospital, a joint venture hospital. It was previously obscure and rarely disclosed outside information, but in 2011 it received its first round of financing, invested separately by N EA.

In the end, what is its advantage to get the favor of N EA investment?

NEA Xiaodong, an investment partner, said in an interview with South reporters that differentiated competition was the biggest factor in attracting his investment. In the new mileage hospital, the patient obtains the scientific treatment method and the Humanized medical service, while attempts to penetrate the cancer cell, but also can enjoy the quality life, this with the traditional cancer hospital formed the differentiation competition.

Tumors, cardio-cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus and senile dementia are the four major diseases of China. Of these, one out of every 4 deaths has died of cancer, and 2 million more cancer patients are added each year.

In Xiaodong's view, this means a huge market space, he focused on medical services in the technical threshold and the higher barriers of the large specialist areas, cancer is the most representative of the major part of the academy. In the field of medical services for cancer treatment, NEA invested in Hegiya medical care in 2010, a provider of medical technology and services focused on cancer radiotherapy.

The medical industry has been the main field of N EA investment, and has been involved in all aspects of pharmaceutical distribution, biochemical pharmacy, medical equipment, medical service and other industrial chain.

Coupon reverse operation still suck gold

Zhang Yibin is not the first person to think of making money from coupons. Previously, a large number of enterprises to provide online coupons for consumers to download, or directly in the vicinity of businesses or popular merchants to distribute coupons. The disadvantage of these methods is that in the process of dissemination, consumers may be "lost".

Thus, the Zhang Yibin created by the reverse operation, from the ground terminal interception of consumers. He is in the subway station, convenience stores and shopping plaza in the construction of the terminal, the consumer as long as the VELO card in the terminal sensor, 3 km within the free merchants coupons will be presented, so that consumers effectively brought to the merchant consumption.

However, for Zhang Yibin, coupons are just a carrier.

The more valuable dimension of the model is the powerful content and user database network behind the thousands of service terminals in the city. In other words, the city is essentially a company that serves precision data marketing.

Xiaodong in an interview with reporters in the south, said that NEA investment value is the maintenance of the city for localization and mobile clients to provide a complete marketing solution. The city has several rounds of financing, of which the fourth round of financing in 2011, by NEA and other institutions to jointly invest.

Xiaodong says the city is one of the layouts of the investment in the O-2O sector. As early as 2006, the investment of Grace Investment Technology, and the network payment provider is different, repeatedly technology-oriented is the local life market offline consumption of small payments. In Xiaodong's view, this is also a generalized O2O system.

However, he believes that the future will not exist line under the difference, all enterprises, platforms and so will return to the mobile phone terminal. and n E a investment is most interested in how companies use the Internet, mobile phones and other IT technology to change and upgrade the offline consumption mode, for merchants and users to bring greater value.