Snowball'S Listing In The United States Is Rumored To Be Repeated

? ? ? Recently, the news that snowball, an investor exchange and trading community platform, was listed in the United States as early as may this year has exploded the investment circle. It is said that snowball plans to apply for an IPO in the United States, with a fund-raising amount of about 300 million US dollars. Market participants generally have long expected the overseas listing of snowball, so this news once spread out, quickly attracted attention.

According to media reports, a person familiar with the matter disclosed that snowball is working with relevant financial advisors to promote the planned stock sale. Relevant matters are at the stage of deliberation. The specific issuance time and financing arrangements may still change, and IPO documents may be submitted as soon as may.

But snowball officials told the 21st century economic reporter that the news was not an official announcement of the company. At present, there is no timetable for the listing of the company, and no response will be made to the online news.

An unconfirmed rumor about listing has aroused heated discussion in the investment community and spread wildly in the financial media circle. How did snowball disturb the financial and media circles?

Big capital darling

Snowball company was founded in March 2010, and its founder is Fang Sanwen, a well-known media person.

At present, snowball owns an investment social product "snowball", an information portal "i-u.s. stocks" serving Chinese American stock investors, as well as businesses such as "egg roll fund", "Xueying securities" and "snowball private placement".

According to public information, the three core founders of snowball, including Fang Sanwen, are all from Netease. Liang Jian, vice president and co-founder of snowball, is the editor in chief of I-US shares.

Li Nan, the current CEO of snowball, is also one of the founders of snowball. He is fully responsible for the promotion of snowball's various businesses.

"Life is like snowball. The most important thing is to find wet snow and long slopes." Fang Sanwen quotes Warren Buffet, the God of stocks, and the name of snowball comes from it.

At the beginning of its establishment, snowball was positioned as an investor exchange community. Around 2010, China concept stocks set off a wave of listing in the United States. The newly established snowball has earned enough attention by betting on the US stock market.

In 2010, when the company was founded, it obtained millions of Yuan Angel round financing invested by Mingshi capital and Manzi fund of famous investor Xue Manzi. Less than a year after Xue Manzi's investment, Shen NANPENG's Sequoia Capital led the snowball round a financing alone in June 2011, with an investment of 20 million yuan.

"We don't have a profit, let alone a profit model. It's not good when we can make a profit in the future." When he got the investment from Xue Manzi and Shen NANPENG, Fang Sanwen said that the development stage of snowball was defined as the stage of product development and customer maintenance, and the core task was to add and update the product functions of the website. Of snowball's only 40 odd employees, nearly 30 employees were responsible for the product development and website maintenance of snowball website, and more than 10 were responsible for the information update of I US stocks.

Fang Sanwen said at that time, "compared with profitability, snowball is to do a good job in products and platforms, so that more users can reflect personalized and high-value services."

There is no clear profit model and I don't know how to cash in and make money, but the newly established snowball has started several magic rounds of institutional financing. According to public information, in June 2013, Sequoia Capital of Shen NANPENG led the snowball round B financing again, with a total investment of 10 million US dollars with Wuyuan capital; In September 2014, Wuyuan capital and Renren company invested in snowball round C financing, totaling 40 million US dollars; In July 2018, ant financial and aimegu invested US $120 million to complete the d-round financing of snowball.

In December 2020, snowball has just completed the last round of e-financing, with an exclusive investment of US $120 million by Lanxin Asia Investment Group.

According to the statistics of 21st century economic report, snowball has raised more than 300 million US dollars in six rounds of financing since its establishment. After the completion of e-round financing, snowball's valuation is $600 million. After many rounds of support from the capital tycoons, snowball has become a community platform for investors to communicate with each other.

In 2018, at the snowball carnival, Li Nan revealed that snowball covered more than 3000 A-shares, more than 2000 Hong Kong stocks, and nearly 14000 major products and derivatives of three exchanges in the United States. In addition, the platform also covers 5000 public offering products and 300 private offering products. In that year, snowball had accumulated more than 1 billion pieces of data, with an average daily production of 200000 pieces of discussion, and an average of 12 million active users per month.

However, it is worth noting that, unlike the "snowball" after financing, the scale of operation, especially the number of employees, has not increased significantly after several rounds of financing. In 2012, when snowball got round a financing, the number of employees was more than 40. However, according to qixinbao data, in the annual industrial and commercial report in 2020, the number of employees who pay social security is still only 47.

During the e-round financing, Li Nan said that the new round of financing will continue to be used for recruitment of outstanding talents, continuous business upgrading and investment in industry and research, provide users with more comprehensive and reliable wealth management platform services, and realize snowball's mission of "connecting people and assets, making the snowball of wealth roll bigger and bigger".

This means that snowball will continue to invest in product business upgrading, new business expansion and team building. As for the indicators of business income generation and profitability, it is still not the focus at this stage.

Li Jipei, managing director of Lanxin Asia, once said: "snowball has excellent user reputation and user stickiness. In particular, it has built a very strong barrier in community and content construction, occupying the mind of China's best quality investor group, and expects the company to continuously achieve breakthroughs and development in content and community, We should further expand our influence in the new middle class users, especially the younger generation of users, grow together with users in the process of matching people and assets and promoting online investment and trading, create more unique value, and make the snowball of wealth bigger and bigger. "

Explore profit model

"10 million users is our goal of snowball, and we will talk about others later." When snowball was founded, what Fang Sanwen had to do was to create a stock investment exchange platform with 10 million users.

According to public data, snowball's goal of 10 million users in 2018 has already been achieved. What snowball needs to focus on is how to change the current hand flow and find a suitable profit model? In fact, snowball's profit model is also a common problem faced by small and medium-sized enterprises in the industry.

According to the statistics of qixinbao, there are 23 competing companies in the community platform for investor exchange similar to snowball, including Dongfang fortune.com and securities Star. At present, the investment information and exchange platforms such as Dongfang fortune, tonghuashun and great wisdom, which are located in the first camp of investment information, have been listed, with market value of tens of billion yuan or even 100 billion yuan.

Among them, the latest market value of Dongfang fortune, which is highly similar to snowball business, is close to 300 billion yuan. Another competitive product platform of the same kind, securities Star, is also a financial website of China Finance Online (c.f.o.), which has been listed on NASDAQ. It is positioned as the preferred platform for global Chinese traders to obtain a large amount of financial information and exchange investment experience.

In contrast, after 10 years of development, snowball's valuation is $600 million by the end of 2020, and it is still a small company in the industry. As the latecomer's platforms such as snowball, how to achieve a breakthrough in the competitive financial information and investor exchange market is the focus of the market and investors. The hot discussion of snowball's listing news also confirms the market's attention to its business model.

The 21st century economic reporter noted that on snowball's official website, its vision has become "the preferred online wealth management platform for Chinese people" and "connecting people and assets to make the snowball of wealth bigger and bigger".

In April 2015, snowball launched its securities trading business, and in December of that year, it launched private placement business. Snowball egg roll fund was launched in 2016, and Xueying securities business was launched in March 2017. In September 2020, snowball also established a snowball insurance brokerage company and obtained the insurance broker license.

At present, snowball has registered snowball, snowball finance, snowball insurance, snowball stock, snowball securities, snowball workshop, snowball private placement, snowball investment and many other trademarks. Currently, it is still applying for the trademark of "snowball" in categories 41, 9 and 35.

Community based snowball has become a one-stop communication and trading community platform for high net worth users, and is constantly expanding diversified business. However, the company's current layout of a number of financial businesses are in a strong regulatory environment, the industry is more competitive.

It has been revealed that snowball has no business qualification such as financial information. Most of the information inside the station is reproduced through authorization from qualified news gathering and editing agencies. At the same time, the company has no research and report business, and the relevant contents are also reprinted and purchased from third-party research report abstracts. And the company's securities brokerage and other businesses are mostly with external institutions.

Whether snowball's business layout of realizing flow realization can adhere to the concept of compliance management and explore a new path in the Red Sea market is the key to realize the listing and expansion of snowball.

?