Three Years Ago, Hongyi Venture Capital Invested Heavily In The Layout Of New Consumer Brands

In December 2020, Shanghai Pet Pet Pet Products Co., Ltd. announced the completion of nearly 200 million yuan round B financing, setting the highest single amount of financing in the pet industry this year, which is another layout of Hony venture capital in the direction of new consumer brands. Recently, the invested enterprise of Hony venture capital, fine arts treasure, has completed the D round of 210 million US dollars financing. This round of financing is the leading single financing in the field of online quality education in China. Prior to that, on November 19, Hony venture capital entered the perfect diary parent company, Yixian e-commerce, which has been running for three years since round a, and successfully landed on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming the first Chinese beauty group to be listed in the US stock market, with a market value of more than 10 billion US dollars.

China's early venture capital market, and ushered in a heavyweight player.

On November 1, 2020, Hony venture capital, an investment management platform of Lenovo holdings, which focuses on early stage venture capital projects, announced that it had completed the first phase of US dollar fund raising, with a fund scale of US $130 million. It is understood that since July 2020, the fund started to raise funds, and it took only four months to complete the over financing. The investors are many well-known international institutional investors.

The "resume" of this young fund can be described as brilliant: so far, many star projects, such as perfect diary, ximuyuan, dingdong shopping for vegetables, art treasure, etc., have been collected by it.

Wang Tianshi, managing partner of Hony venture capital, said that as the business of Hony investment focusing on early and medium-term venture capital, Hony venture capital mainly focuses on the field of digital consumption. At the same time, Hony venture capital is also carrying out investment exploration in the field of Tob technology with industrial digitization as the main line, and relevant partners are now in place.

This is Hony investment, which was established in 2003 and officially launched its early investment business. In fact, in recent years, VC / PE early venture capital is not rare: Hillhouse capital, Sequoia China, GGV, Huagai capital and other head institutions have become active players in the arena.

Similar to the institutions at home and abroad that have built a comprehensive investment management platform, Hony investment, which is the first to be good at M & A investment, has continuously tried to cross-border and expand frequency in different business categories during its 17 years of establishment. Up to now, it has gained great achievements and brand reputation in the fields of real estate and secondary market.

Four months to complete the over raised, Hony venture capital's two major investment themes revealed

Hony venture capital's first US dollar fund-raising, as a whole, was carried out during the epidemic. Since the start of financing in July this year, under the background of the continuous cold in the overall fund-raising market, it took only four months to successfully complete the excessive fund-raising, and gained high recognition from the market.

This is Wang Tianshi's first experience of "cloud fundraising". "Due to the epidemic situation, I haven't met many LP's. most of them communicate through video conference. In fact, the whole process is very efficient." Recalling four months of fund-raising experience, Wang Tianshi said, "LP is more concerned about who you are, what you have done, what your strategy is, and a lot of in-depth communication in the cloud can also be completed."

It is understood that Hony venture capital's first US dollar fund has a completely independent decision-making mechanism from Hony's PE main fund, and its investment is mainly round a and round B.

On the investment track, Hony venture capital can see that at present, China has both the world's leading consumer market and the world's largest supply chain system, which are linked by the world's leading digital infrastructure. Based on the three advantages of market, supply chain and digital infrastructure, China's digital consumption ushers in unprecedented opportunities.

In the future, focusing on digital consumption, Hony venture capital will continue to focus on two major investment themes: Digital driven consumer brands and new retail and digital content driven vertical platforms.

"Two types of core consumption of generation Z and new middle-class families mainly drive the emergence of structural new demand. At the same time, the shift from traditional centralized media to decentralized, personalized and lean mobile social media provides a faster and more accurate channel for users to reach, and China will have the opportunity to create a new generation of consumer brands and retail channels. " Wang Tianshi said, "in the potential field, Hony venture capital will explore excellent teams with keen insight into user needs and differentiated product positioning, sensitive response and learning ability to innovative digital marketing, and organizational structure and strategic ability to achieve long-term brand building."

Specifically, around the digital driven consumer brand and new retail theme, Hony venture capital has previously laid out two major fields of beauty and fresh food.

In 2017, Hony venture capital led the investment in round a with perfect diary. In 2020, Hony venture capital will continue to increase its market in this field. Pre-A round will lead investment in ximuyuan, a medium and high-end skin care brand focusing on natural active ingredients.

In the new retail channels, Hongyi venture capital is optimistic about the penetration opportunities of e-commerce in the 4 trillion fresh food market, and has invested in the front-end fresh e-commerce platform dingdong to buy vegetables.

Focusing on the theme of digital content driven vertical platform, Hony focuses on the new generation of online education and social and entertainment innovation opportunities based on segmentation.

Among them, in the field of online education, art treasure invested by Hony venture capital provides personalized and customized art quality education for children aged 4-12 through different forms of online art interactive classes. In the field of secondary animation, Hony venture capital has invested in the left-hand layup culture dedicated to the R & D and operation of Chinese Original Sports Animation IP.

"In addition to material consumption, new consumers will also promote the growth of spiritual consumption demand. At the same time, the maturity of big data, AI, live broadcast and other technologies has accelerated the emergence of personalized, digital and intelligent content driven vertical platform opportunities. " Wang explained.

In the future, Hony venture capital will also invest in tob science and technology based on industrial digitization, focusing on the underlying computing and connectivity capabilities, intelligent terminals, and data-driven industrial applications.

"Relying on the rich industrial scene, the popularization of computing infrastructure under the new infrastructure, and the continuous improvement of the reserve of scientific and technological talents, in the next 5-10 years, China will emerge a number of competitive original technology enterprises in the world, and many of them will not have direct" benchmarking "in Europe and the United States." "In addition to capital assistance, Hony capital's deep industrial resources will also bring rich customer resources and industry awareness to technology entrepreneurs," Hony said

A round bet perfect diary, early investment is not just luck

Wang Tianshi thought he was a lucky early investor.

"In recent years, I have made early investment, and the projects I invested have performed well and have good luck. However, my team and I are still under a lot of pressure, because the strategy and methodology need to be iterated, and we can't be immersed in the past successful cases, and we have to think about how we can get to the next perfect diary. "

Perfect diary, this is Wang Tianshi led Hony venture capital investment in the virgin work.

Before the "double 11" in 2017, Hony venture capital became the leading investor of round a of perfect diary, but the perfect diary at that time was not widely known, and the record of "double 11" in that year was not so good.

However, Wang Tianshi revealed that although the perfect diary was still in the "pre dawn" period at that time, honyi Chuang was not without competitors when it entered the Bureau.

"In fact, at that stage in 2017, many investment institutions have seen the perfect diary, and they are very interested. But every institution is more or less hesitant, or they haven't found the point that they can be sure of, and we seized the opportunity. "

At that time, Wang Tianshi found three points, and thought it was enough to be sure.

First of all, in recent years, the online penetration rate of beauty has been increasing rapidly. At that time, the online growth rate of China's color makeup had reached 100%, which was undoubtedly a 100 billion level runway.

Secondly, the breakthrough point of perfect Diary makes Wang Tianshi feel bright in front of him.

"At that time, there were many high-end international brands in the market, as well as many low-end brands, but few of the latter could really make brands." "At the same time, the perfect diary has attached great importance to data from the beginning," Wang said. They have such a concept from the beginning: to understand consumers through data, and to be consumer centered. This is very attractive to me in terms of business. "

Finally, the founder of the perfect diary is the biggest addition to the project. "Huang Jinfeng has a keen insight into consumer demand and business opportunities. He has strong executive power, and has the ability of pattern and organization." Wang Tianshi said, "early investment selection is very critical, people become, things will soon become."

At 2:00 a.m. on the "double 11" in 2018, Wang Tianshi accompanied the founding team of perfect diary to wait for a "miracle of breaking 100 million" of domestic cosmetics.

"The founders and I wore Elvis Presley suits and wigs." Referring to the scene at that time, Wang Tianshi still could not hide his excitement. "The founders Cosplay helped the team cheer up. After a special celebration, they went downstairs to eat a bowl of soup and river noodles, and then went back to work."

On November 19, the parent company of perfect diary, Yixian e-commerce ("YSG"), was successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming the first Chinese beauty group to be listed in the United States. After listing, Yixian e-commerce has performed well, and its market value has exceeded 10 billion US dollars by the time of publication.

Hongyi officially entered venture capital business, VC market changes

From mid late investment to early investment, Wang Tianshi admitted that the most intuitive feeling is "more tired".

"The two models are really different. Now, I have to watch hundreds of projects a year, which consumes not only brain power, but also physical strength. The intensity must be greater. But because I love it, I'll feel happy about it. "

Looking around the primary market, Wang Tianshi is not the only PE investor who has turned to the early stage, and Hony is not the only one that has moved the investment chain forward. In recent years, the early venture capital of well-known VC / PE is not rare: many head institutions such as Hillhouse capital, Sequoia China, GGV, Huagai capital have become active players in the arena.

"I think it's very reasonable. Because the world is changing and innovation is accelerating in the big era. Different institutions also hope to have earlier insight into new trends, so as to seize good investment opportunities. " Wang said.

Race to open, shuffle as promised.

Cvsource investment data shows that since 2019, investment institutions have gradually adopted the investment strategy of avoiding risks and focusing on value investment, reducing early project investment, and the investment stage of investment institutions in the overall venture capital market tends to move backward. Compared with 2018, China's early investment has dropped by more than 60%.

The departure of a large number of early institutions confirms this fact. But from another point of view, this is not the best opportunity for PE giants to "seize the battlefield"?

Through the project experience of perfect diary, Wang Tianshi saw that as an investment institution which has been deeply engaged in PE business for 17 years, Hony investment has two main advantages in its early stage.

First, Hony investment has rich experience in M & A integration, which can help enterprises. "We all know that big companies in the beauty industry, such as L'Oreal, are getting bigger and bigger through M & A. In the future development process of perfect diary, we can provide domestic and international M & a related help, so that enterprises can grow rapidly. " Wang Tianshi said.

Second, the industrial resources invested by Hony are a long board that early institutions did not have. "For example, Hony investment has cognitive accumulation in the consumer industry, and real estate investment business is also a business that can provide collaborative resources. The first choice of a new retail offline store of perfect diary is with the help of Hony resources. It's also a very successful attempt. " Wang Tianshi said, "therefore, compared with some VC only or early institutions, our resources will be more abundant. Even, sometimes, enterprises may not think of what we can help, but we have the resources to help. "

However, returning to the essence of early investment, the key for early investors to do well is still to "select the right people, understand the entrepreneurs, and accompany them to go on". This is no exception to the late entrants.

"We want to be a reliable partner behind the entrepreneurs." "Grasping the key variables of the industry and partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs, we have had successful practices and hope to do better in the future," Wang said

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