Dragonfly FM receives a new round of financing: a number of founding executives have faded out and were recently notified of removal

Recently, online audio platform Dragonfly FM announced the completion of a new round of financing, led by Chinese Online (SZ: 300364), followed by strategic shareholders Xiaomi, Ruiyi Investment, and Puwei Capital. It is understood that this is the second round of financing that Dragonfly FM will receive in 2021.

However, the amount and valuation of Dragonfly FM's current round of financing have not been disclosed. Previously, in June 2021, Dragonfly FM received a Series F financing led by Microwood Capital. Up to now, Dragonfly FM has received investment from well-known institutions such as Matrix Partners China, Wuyuan Capital, Xiaomi Group, Shunwei Capital, Youku Tudou, and Innovation Factory.

According to previous data, as of December 2018, the total number of dragonfly FM users exceeded 450 million, of which the number of monthly active users exceeded 100 million, and the number of daily active users exceeded 25 million. Zhang Qiang said in an internal letter in March 2020 that Dragonfly FM had a MAU of 130 million in 2019 and 25 million hours of listening per day.

According to the latest news, as of now, Dragonfly FM has more than 500 head partners in the entire ecosystem, reaching more than 90 million smart homes, wearable devices and on-board smart terminals, and the monthly activity of platform ecological traffic has reached 130 million.

It is worth mentioning that earlier this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Removing the List of Apps that Infringe on the Rights and Interests of Users" in July 2021 in response to problems such as APP illegal requests for permissions, open-screen pop-up information and harassment of users, and Dragonfly FM was listed among them.

According to the notice, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology found that Dragonfly FM (version: 9.2.8), a subsidiary of Shanghai Microphone Culture Media Co., Ltd., had problems such as illegal collection of personal information, deception and misleading forced users, and TT Voice (5.5.10-14870) was also notified.

Due to the failure to complete the rectification in time, Dragonfly FM was also removed from the shelves. On August 25 this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Removing the List of Apps That Infringe on the Rights and Interests of Users", and Dragonfly FM (App Store version: 9.3.3) was notified of the removal of the shelves because of the problem of "deception and misleading forced users".

In this regard, the People's Network published a commentary article saying that it is not difficult to see from the long list of successive notices requiring rectification and removal that some enterprises "have orders that do not work, and there are prohibitions that do not stop", and there are still problems that are not completely rectified, the problems that have been rectified are changed back to the original, technical means are used to confront, and differentiated rectification and reform for different regions.

The commentary article also pointed out that APP companies play "hide and seek" with the supervision, and mobile phone users "play routines", hit the muzzle of the gun and express their attitude of rectification, and the limelight has returned to the old state, that is, nakedly ignoring laws and regulations and ignoring the interests of users. What awaits them will be to completely "fade out of the lake".

Since then, Dragonfly FM responded to the media that in July 2021, Dragonfly FM immediately began to rectify after receiving the notice, and the latest release of version 9.3.6 has completed the rectification of the open screen advertisement without clicks, and said that "the current iOS and Android latest version meet the rectification requirements of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology." ”

According to the enterprise investigation information, "Dragonfly FM" belongs to Shanghai Microphone Culture Media Co., Ltd., which was established in 2002, the legal representative is Zhang Qiang, and the registered capital is 142 million yuan. At present, Zhang Qiang, founder, chairman and CEO of Dragonfly FM, is his largest shareholder, with a shareholding ratio of about 24%.

Earlier, Dragonfly FM's CEO position was held by Yang Tinghao, technical director of HULU in the United States and head of the China team, who was also the co-founder of Dragonfly FM. It is understood that the founder team of Dragonfly FM also includes Zhao Jiexin, who was the co-founder, vice president and chief operating officer (COO) of Dragonfly FM.

However, Yang Tinghao and Zhao Jiexin have not represented Dragonfly FM executives in public, or have left the company. Among them, Zhao Jiexin no longer serves as a director of Dragonfly FM in May 2021, but still holds about 1.12% of the company's shares; Yang Tinghao is still a director of Dragonfly FM, but the shareholding ratio is unknown.

In fact, Dragonfly FM's COO position has long been taken over by Xiao Yi in November 2017. In September 2019, Xiao Yi left dragonfly FM. In this regard, Dragonfly FM has responded that "there is no suitable COO candidate at present, and the founder, chairman and CEO Zhang Qiang will temporarily act as an agent."

At present, the directors of Dragonfly FM on record include: Jing Kun, Chen Qiang, Chen Hang, Daniel Zhang, Tang Xiaoming, Fei Beijie, Wang Lei, Yang Tinghao, Jiang Shaoqing, Wang Liang, Wang Hua, and Guihong. Among them, Jing Kun is the general manager of Baidu's secret business department, Wang Huawei is the co-founder of the innovation workshop, and Tang Xiaoming is the founding partner of Micro Shadow Capital.