Text: Three-three
At the end of 2021, Forbes released the list of China's top 100 venture capital companies, and Xu Xin, the founder of Today Capital, once again entered the top ten of the list. Many people may be unfamiliar with the name Xu Xin, after all, compared to investors, people tend to pay more attention to some entrepreneurs, although Xu Xin is not active in the venture capital circle, but the jianghu still circulates her legend.
Jingdong, NetEase, Meituan, Zhihu, Three Squirrels, boss direct employment, Prosperity Preferred, etc., all have Xu Xin's investment figure, and it is precisely because of her steady, accurate and fierce investment that she has achieved many later well-known enterprises, and has also indirectly contributed to many billionaires, known as the "Queen of Venture Capital".
From a bank teller to accidentally start the road to investment
To say how Xu Xin stepped into the field of investment, this experience can be said to be quite magical. In 1988, Xu Xin graduated from Nanjing University, she entered the Bank of China to become an ordinary teller, as a small teller Xu Xin was not satisfied with the status quo, she took all the honors in the industry, and soon promoted to deputy section chief. Due to her excellent work, she got the opportunity to study CPA in the UK, Xu Xin studied English during college, which means that she now has to study interdisciplinarily, but she did not give up and flinched, and after three years of intensive study, she successfully obtained the British CPA license.
In 1995, it was a turning point in Xu Xin's life, she jumped to Hong Kong's local enterprise Baifu Qin style investment with her boss, and from this time on, Xu Xin began her own investment life. At that time, where would the investment industry notice a new little girl, no one expected that she would eventually become the VCs queen that entrepreneurs competed for, and many excellent domestic enterprises relied on Xu Xin's investment to get up.
Cast 2 richest men
Xu Xin's first shot was the richest man in the mainland. In 1995, Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha, wanted to sell bottled water, but at that time, there was no mineral water, and the streets were full of military kettles, and it was very difficult for Zong Qinghou to move the foreign model to China. At that time, although Xu Xin was not sure whether bottled water could be accepted in China, she still invested 40 million US dollars in Zong Qinghou.
Zong Qinghou also lived up to expectations, and the bottled water produced by Wahaha was on fire as soon as it was listed, and this convenient drinking water quickly occupied the Chinese market. In 2010, Zong Qinghou became the richest man in China with a wealth value of 80 billion yuan, and became the richest man in China again in 2012.
In 1998, Xu Xin's original company, Baifuqin, did not withstand the Asian financial turmoil and eventually collapsed, and Xu Xin joined The Bullying Investment Group as a director and general manager of China, specializing in related investments in Chinese mainland. The second richest man cast by Xu Xin started here. Around the turn of the millennium, China's Internet is surging up, some people are riding the wind, some people are beaten down by the waves, and this wave of the Internet has made Yang Zhiyuan, Zhang Chaoyang and others, and xu xin.
In 1999, Xu Xin invested $5 million in Ding Lei's NetEase, and Ding Lei, who got the money, took NetEase straight to the NASDAQ in the United States, and raised $115 million in 18 months of listing. However, before it was time to celebrate, the global Internet bubble crisis came, the stock market plummeted, and NetEase's stock price fell from more than $30 all the way to less than $1, which naturally met with the dissatisfaction of Barings' shareholders, but Xu Xin firmly believed that NetEase would not easily fall.
In the end, Xu Xin resisted, and Ding Lei also resisted. Two years later, the online game "Journey to the West" turned out to be a big outbreak of domestic online games, and NetEase's market value soared to tens of billions of DOLLARs. In 2003, Ding Lei was worth $7.6 billion, making him the youngest man in China at the time. Subsequently, Xu Xin cashed out NetEase shares, earning 800% of the return for shareholders, and in the face of high returns, they were also fortunate that Xu Xin insisted on Ding Lei.
At this time, Xu Xin is no longer the little girl who first entered the investment bank, she has been in this field for seven years, with a precise move, she can already keep pace with Shen Nanpeng, Zhang Lei, these investment bigwigs. In 2005, Xu Xin founded Today Capital Group, and then a choice became her most legendary and well-known investment in the jianghu.
2021 China's top 500 private enterprises list released, Jingdong with an annual revenue of 768.624 billion yuan ranked second in the list, second only to Huawei, some people say that Jingdong can sit in this position today thanks to Xu Xin, what is their origin? This has to start more than a decade ago. In 2006, jd.com's online and offline markets were not good at the time, and before Liu Qiangdong met Xu Xin, he had been turned away by many investors.
When meeting Xu Xin, Liu Qiangdong did not hold out much hope at this time, he said that he only needed 2 million yuan of investment, but Xu Xin thought that Liu Qiangdong was a "dark horse", directly and arrogantly gave him 10 million US dollars, and when he saw that Jingdong only had 50 employees at that time, he also found a professional accountant for Jingdong. With this investment, JD.com quickly came back to life, in 2014, JD.com's market value when it was listed was $28.6 billion, Xu Xin also received a 160 times return on investment, since then, many people have laughed at Xu Xin as the woman behind Liu Qiangdong.
In the more than 20 years since entering the investment field, Xu Xin has invested in nearly 100 enterprises, including Vipshop, Ctrip, Meituan, etc., which have also been successful since then. It is worth noting that among these enterprises that Xu Xin has sold, there is no enterprise for his husband. Xu Xin's husband Li Song, the founder of Zhen'ai Network, the two met when they were working in Hong Kong, when Li Song had just returned to China to start a business, but compared with Xu Xin, who was unknown at that time, Li Song's experience was relatively rich. He has worked in banking investments in New York, served as vice president of the bonds division of Bear Stearns in New York, and managed director of Morgan Stanley Corporation's Asia region.
After returning to China, Li Song's entrepreneurial road did not go smoothly, and his two ventures ended in failure, until 2004, when he founded Zhen'ai Network. But at that time, there were century Jiayuan and Lily Network in China, these two platforms have occupied a large number of users, Zhen'ai Network wants to grab meat is not easy, in the face of huge competitive pressure, Xu Xin did not pay attention to her husband, let it develop.
Some people have asked: Why invest so many people without contributing to their husbands? In this regard, Xu Xin also responded in an interview that her husband Li Song's ability is better than her own, and the investment of their relationship is a "big taboo" in the venture capital industry. Such an answer reassures everyone. Perhaps it is the two of them who are busy with their own work, but they appreciate each other and support each other' patterns, so that they both shine in their respective fields.