John UM
The harsher winter is far from coming
Due to the double difficulties of capital and mode, the shared bicycle field is already sorrowful, and the road ahead is confused. When it appears, it is ridiculed as a shared charging treasure for VC. What is the current situation?
The fruits are only survived and they are running away
For them, 2019 is a crucial year, involving life and death
In the past 3 years, the shared charging treasure high-speed rise and fall, from the initial bombardment or even as a laughingstock, to the sudden enthusiasm of the real money of various institutions, a moment of swaying, entrepreneurs, and now almost completely disappeared Beyond the real venture capital topic
At the end of the year, “Chinese Entrepreneur” once again paid attention to the so-called industry in which the title was shared. We spent a considerable amount of time visiting several shared charging platforms that are still exploring on the commercial road. At the same time, they conducted in-depth field research on their business development
Numerous projects that have come from the wind and have fallen into the mud have now come to an end. In addition to begging for survival, a handful of industry survivors are still full of hope for the future
The demand is real, but its market space cannot hold up even a unicorn. Street electricity, calls, small electricity, monsters, this is the most likely to come out to clean up the mess
The battle has already started fiercely among the four, but who can finally win and kill the other three, I believe it will soon be known
Tide water recedes.
Sharing the charging light of the high-light moment, in the first half of 2017, within four days, the industry received 750 million yuan financing
But even so, the outside world is still generally not optimistic, the voice of controversy has been like a tsunami
On May 5th, 2017, after the news that the United States invested 300 million yuan in the market, the son of Wang Jianlin sent a WeChat circle of friends at 5 am, so: “Share charging treasure If it can be done, I will eat Xiang. The post is proof.”
Source: Screenshot of friends circle.
Social media quickly ignited this hot spot
After 3 hours, Chen Ou shouted in the microblog and replied to Wang Sicong. He said: “Thanks to Sicong for supervision, not every project can be made. Originally, entrepreneurial success is a small probability event. Street electricity can’t do public welfare, but I hope that you will not let this project settle in Wanda because of your emotions. “.
Source: Weibo screenshot.
Appeared in 2016, and then gradually increased. After 2017, a wave broke out, and then it fell into silence. The aforementioned Chen Ou and Wang Sicong’s quasi-entertainment interactions are only one of the unstable industries. There is a rare wave of gloom, and after that, such waves are rarely reappeared
The founders of Shared Charging, who have walked through the peak period, are still relishing the story of being chased by VC that year
After sharing the bicycle fire, bring many shared projects. Investors who have missed the shared bicycle vents before, in order to make up for the regrets, even need to run into the market. These investors are worried that the entrepreneurs will repent after signing the agreement and willing to accompany them all the time, even escorting the entrepreneurs to go home in the middle of the night, lest they go to see other institutions and regenerate the festival. Yuan Bingsong, the founder of the call, had such experience
Hu Tian is the co-founder of a shared charging treasure platform in Shanghai, and he has now withdrawn from the project. This is one of the earlier projects in China to share the charging treasure, which was launched in 2015. But its original intention is not “sharing”, but leasing, the main purpose is to divert the game companies
“At that time, the cost of obtaining traffic was already very expensive. We are going to find a carrier to cut the entrance to drain. The charging treasure is just a need, and the rental unit price is not high, it is relatively high frequency, it is worth a try.” Hu Tian said
I have met many organizations, but most investors are quite uncomfortable with them. They feel that this rental project is not reliable and is a pseudo-demand. “Investors think that charging a treasure is one, do you still need to rent?” Hu Tian said the situation at the time, the language is not flat and disdain
Turnaround appeared in 2016. At the most exaggerated time, there were dozens of investment institutions that found Hu Tian, and they were eager to vote for them. “Investors who once thought that our project was not reliable, suddenly ran over to find me.”
“we have seen more than 20 intensively, but after reading our data, these investors are quite hesitant.” Hu Tian said that sharing charging treasure is an industry without threshold. If you really want to raise money, burn a burning money. It would be fine to look at the data a bit, but at the time the team had no money to burn, so it was awkward
It’s understandable not to drop it, but the next move of one of the investors makes Hu Tian very angry: After the investor and his chat, not only the humans evaporate, but also the small cabinet mode of their time. Informed to the competing product, the competing product is the invested enterprise of this institution
Capital’s enthusiasm did not make Hu Tian lose his way. Although he was doing something to share the treasure, he still remembered the game business. Especially in the second half of 2017, the industry is getting sluggish, the head company is more and more dominant, and when the project he is in is getting farther and farther, he is disheartened, and then simply withdraws and re-does the game
There are still many shared charging treasure projects that have to leave because of poor financing. Such as music. The Ledian project only lasted for 7 months: it was launched in March 2017. After that, it was difficult to make a profit and the financing was difficult. It was unsuccessful to stop operations in October 2017
Where to go from here.
Calling CMO Renmu repeatedly stressed in the interview that the call is the earliest charging treasure in the industry, starting in 2014. “At that time, there was no shared bicycle. Moby was established in January 2015.”
Photography: Wu Yuxi.
Calling CMO Renmu received an invitation from Yuan Bingsong to make a call, he still drums in his heart: Is this a pseudo-demand? Can this be done?
Calling early capital investment is all self-raised. In the first half of 2016, because of the need for investment in research and development, production, and operation, the 10 million yuan self-raised will soon light up. After a long time, the calls were in a situation where they could not make ends meet
At this time, the capital is not optimistic about this business model, so the financing is in an embarrassing situation, and the company once squandered the food. “What should I do? Do you want to do it? It is very difficult for you to earn a penny. If you want to go, the founding team will raise 7 million. That is to say, before the arrival of the wind, we invested a total of 17 million.”
The motivation to continue in any case, from the data of the charging treasure that has been put out at that time. “In a few places where we piloted, the data was really good. A charging treasure has at least seven or eight rentals a day.”
The vent is finally waiting
Starting from the second half of 2016, with the encouragement of shared bicycles, a large amount of capital began to share the charging treasure. In April 2017, the caller announced that he was awarded the lead by SIG and Red Dot China. The chairman of Jiuhe Venture Capital and Scuding Co., Ltd. Personally invested $20 million in A round financing, becoming the largest financing in the shared charging treasure industry at that time. Thanks to the help of financing, the call quickly passed through large cabinets and quickly occupied public places such as shopping malls, hospitals and railway stations
Compared with the caller’s bitterness, as the listed company Jumeiyou products invested in the street, a little “with a gold spoon” was born
“Street electricity is the only company that has no detours.” When evaluating several current sharing treasure companies, Hu Tian could not help but envy. In his view, the small cabinet is the most suitable for users, so it is the most popular at present, but the call is to start with a large cabinet. The small electric appliance starts with “desktop charging”. Only street lighting is a small cabinet mode
Xiao Yong, founder of Xiaodian, is considered to be the person who knows the most capital and tells the story among the founders of the current four platforms. In March 2018, Xiaodian completed several hundred million yuan in B+ round financing. At present, behind the small electric station, standing is a luxury team including Tencent, Sequoia, CDH, Gaochun, Jinshajiang Venture Capital
Photography: Deng Pan.
Xiao Yong, founder of Xiaodian, is considered to be the person who knows the most capital and tells the story among the founders of the current four platforms
“In the very early days, we have a clearer prediction of the future development of the industry, and this is the key to our ability to win other teams.” Tang Yongbo responded. In addition, he said that “desktop charging”, one of the shared charging modes, has not been outdated until today. “For users, the convenience of this mode is even higher than that of “mobile charging.”
The investors who charge monsters are Gaochun Capital, Shunwei Capital, Xiaomi Technology, Lanchi Venture Capital and many other institutions. Backed by Xiaomi Charging Po manufacturer Zi Mi Technology, Monster Charging currently has the first-class supply chain resources on the market
Shopping malls, such as the battlefield, facing the competition, the only remaining platforms in the industry have made all the stops, especially in the competition for offline channel resources, each family is exhaustive means, do not hesitate to pay heavily
Hu Tian has an intuitive feeling: when the industry has not broken out, he can find a 50 to 80 yuan outsourcing to a merchant; after the competition is intensified, the price has increased sharply to 300 yuan
This is just the price of the average merchant. Tickets for some well-known places are much more expensive, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even more outrageous. According to Hu Tian, in order to squeeze competitors out of the signed places, a platform will spend a million or two to the latter
As for the mutual cutting of wires between the peers, they damage each other’s cabinets. This has happened repeatedly in the vicious competition in the charging treasure industry
More worthy of attention is that the litigation and street power patent lawsuits that have been plagued for a long time have recently been: In December 28, 2018, the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court made a judgment, and the street power was inadvertently invaded by the call company. The patent for the charging device and the mobile power rental equipment and charging and clamping device will compensate the latter for a total loss of 30 million yuan.Behind the
Dispute is of course the benefit
A number of shared charging treasure platform executives in the interview with the “Chinese Entrepreneur” reporter repeatedly expressed their desire for the positive development of the industry, and said that the current charging treasure industry, is the darkness before dawn
In the interview, the founder used the term “interim” to describe the development stage of the current shared charging treasure industry. Zhou Honglu, a Chinese investment manager who has invested in a shared charging treasure project and has an in-depth observation of the industry, agrees with this judgment
In the view of Zhou Shuulu, the industry will enter a difficult consolidation period. “Everyone’s business model is basically the same, so the competition is fierce and the distribution channels are robbed. Therefore, there is a great possibility of merger. But in the end, there are a few left in the industry, so how can we talk about it, and what is the giant behind us? Attitude.”
Tang Yongbo believes that 2019 will be the worst year, because each family will still be competing for competition in various channels and scenarios
The founder of the monster charge, Cai Guangyuan, is similar to Tang Yongbo. He said that in 2019, the competition for quality resources will become more intense, and brand differentiation competition will also begin
