Mr. Xie Shihuang, The Founder Of Ali, Invested In The Super HD Video Industry With 4K Garden

With the advent of 5g era, ultra high definition video industry is entering the fast lane of development. According to the data, it is estimated that the overall scale of China's UHD video industry will exceed 4 trillion yuan by 2022.

4K garden started in 2016, and is gradually building a complete 4K UHD video industry ecosystem, with the capacity of 4K content production and supply, channel distribution, core technology research and development, etc.

The rapid development of the company has been recognized by the capital market. In September and December 2020, 4K garden obtained b-round and B + round investment from Haobai holding and Guangzhou Huiyin Aofeng, respectively, with an accumulated amount of more than 100 million yuan. After the completion of financing, the valuation of 4K garden will reach nearly 2 billion yuan.

Recently, Wu Yi, founder of 4K garden, revealed in an exclusive interview with the 21st century economic report that the company plans to officially launch round C financing at the end of January 2021, and has been in contact with some 5g funds and science and technology industry funds with government background. The team plans to reform the company's shares after the completion of round C financing, and put the IPO on the agenda.

Wu Yi first worked in traditional TV stations for more than ten years, then transformed into the Internet field and joined oneness group (Youku Tudou) as an executive. In early 2016, he started 4K garden after leaving oneness. After understanding Wu Yi's background experience and entrepreneurial ideas, Xie Shihuang, a veteran of Ali, readily invested more than 10 million yuan in angel investment.

"We like entrepreneurs with deep accumulation and pioneering spirit in large organizations or within the general system. Wu Yi is in line with such characteristics." Xie Shihuang said in an interview with the 21st century economic report. Wu Yi is very familiar with the content industry. At the same time, he is decisive and has a keen sense of new opportunities. This is an important reason why Shannan, lakeside, invests in Angel round.

He also said that early investment is to look at the future with a telescope. From the perspective of the industry, the whole cultural consumption industry continues to improve in the counter cyclical environment. Thanks to the support of 5g, AI, Internet of things and other technologies, the subdivided UHD industry is on the fast track of development. In the future, UHD can not only be used in TV content and outdoor large screen, but also has great imagination space of scene application in education and medical field.

After completing the angel round investment, 4K garden obtained the pre-A round financing of Hangzhou digital investment, Beijing Digital investment and wood capital investment in December 2016. In August 2017 and January 2018, 4K garden completed round a and round a + financing respectively, and Nanfang fund, Qianhai master fund, Shanghai Heyi, Yueke new media fund, etc. participated in the investment.

At that time, due to the rapid growth of the company's traditional business income, the company did not consider new financing for two years. "We have achieved tens of millions of profits in 2019, and the plan at that time was that if we maintain this growth rate in 2020, we can directly declare for listing in 2021." Wu Yi said.

But by the beginning of 2020, Wu found that a new business was facing the opportunity of explosive growth. This new business, ultra high definition video ring back tone service, is called "Yao Ming" project with explosive growth potential. Because the audio RBT in the past has been a market with a scale of 10 billion yuan, now the UHD video RBT market is just in its infancy. When the market matures in the future, it will be a market of 340 billion yuan. At this time, if 4K garden increases investment and becomes the market leader, occupying 10% - 20% of the market, it will bring more imagination space to the company's future revenue.

Wu Yi's ideas were quickly supported and recognized by Xie Shihuang, so the company began to increase personnel and capital investment in new business, and started a new round of financing. But in 2020, due to the influence of epidemic situation and other factors, the financing environment is far worse than expected. Wu Yi contacted some investors who used to be optimistic about 4K garden but didn't have the chance to invest in it. The other side became more hesitant and cautious.

After several twists and turns, the company completed two rounds of new financing in the second half of 2020. In September 2020, 4K garden won the b-round investment of No.100 holding company of China Telecom. Three months later, in December, the company obtained the B + round financing of Guangzhou Huiyin Aofeng investment. After the completion of the financing, the valuation of 4K garden also reached nearly 2 billion yuan.

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