Image source @ Visual China
Text | Pencil road, the author | Zhang Xuan, editor | Wu Jinna
Live Kumi, what a "fairy project" this is!
Less than 3 years after its establishment, in the past 3 months, the official announcement of 3 rounds of financing, each round has exceeded 100 million yuan, gathered 5 domestic head institutions and CVC, angel round is known as the valuation of 3.947 billion yuan ...
When such a bullish-looking project is placed in front of many investors, their reactions are "stunned" and "how is it possible".
Recently, the news of a number of media platforms disclosed that an e-commerce integrated service provider called "Tianyi Purchase" obtained a 200 million yuan B round of financing, behind which the investors are Sequoia Capital, Tencent Investment, and Hillhouse Venture Capital. Previously, on March 14, the company also claimed to have obtained hundreds of millions of yuan of Series A financing, involving investment institutions including Shunwei Capital, Yuanhe Holdings, and Sequoia China Seed Fund, which were also published on a number of media platforms.
However, when Pencil Road asked various institutional investors and PR leaders for verification on the news of these two rounds of financing, the feedback was generally "too fake", "confirmed that no investment" and "did not hear".
A closer look revealed that the suspicious company was actually doing something new about the rebate shopping site business. Some social e-commerce professionals gave feedback to Pencil Road, "The content of this app alone has not achieved subversion or bold innovation in the business model." "In the past two or three years, players in the social e-commerce field have done a very difficult job, and it is basically difficult to get financing, let alone get the favor of the head institution."
What kind of "magical" company is this?
01 False financing? Touch porcelain VCs, big guys?
The joke of the "fake IPO" is not cold, and the news of "fake financing" is coming again. This time, Sequoia, Hillhouse, Tencent, Yuanhe, and Shunwei have been "touched by porcelain".
On March 29, according to the news of a number of media platforms, a comprehensive service provider in the e-commerce field called "Tianyi Purchase" received a 200 million yuan B round of financing, behind which sequoia Capital, Tencent Investment, and Hillhouse Venture Capital.
Recent financing news of tianyi purchase project
The above-mentioned financing report also mentioned, "This is the third round of financing completed within three years of the establishment of Tianyi Purchase, and the cumulative financing amount has reached hundreds of millions of yuan." ”
The Qicha App shows that there are 3 financing information of Tianyi Purchase. The earliest was on August 31, 2021, and it received an angel round of financing of 180 million yuan with a valuation of 3.947 billion yuan, and the disclosure time of this financing was January 22 this year.
Then, on March 14 this year, Tianyi Purchasing announced that it had obtained hundreds of millions of yuan of A round financing, involving investment institutions including Shunwei Capital, Yuanhe Holdings, and Sequoia Seed Fund. The time difference between the Series A financing and the newly disclosed Series B financing is only 14 days.
Investigations revealed that it had received hundreds of millions of yuan in financing
Less than 3 years after its establishment, in the past 3 months, the official announcement of 3 rounds of financing, each round has broken 100 million yuan, all of a sudden gathered 5 domestic head institutions and CVC, angel round is known as the valuation of 3.947 billion yuan ...
Investors in the circle were startled by such a project. The head of an FA agency told Pencil Road, "This project looks really abnormal, it feels like either a scammer or a white glove, and so many well-known institutions have come in in two months." If there is such a project in the circle, it will have exploded a long time ago, and no one will know it yet. ”
Pencil Dao asked Sequoia Capital, Tencent's investors or PR leaders for verification on this news, and the replies were "no investment", "no heard" and "should be fake".
Among them, the institution of A-round financing, Yuanhe Holdings, responded, "It's strange! Yuanhe Holdings has definitely not invested here. I asked the subordinate Yuanhe Direct Investment, Yuanhe Origin, and Yuanhe Zhongyuan also said that they had not invested in this company. ”
Looking at the news sources behind the three pieces of financing information, it was found that the main body of the article, except for one or two from the venture capital media, was not an official media or authoritative media. Two of the messages came from a Penguin called "Business Circle Information" and the other from a Sohu called "Time and Space Shuttle".
In the "Alien Time and Space Shuttle" account, there are 6 other articles about Tianyi Purchase and its promotion information, saying that "Tianyi Purchase APP announced that the registered users exceeded 150 million" and "Xu Hailiang (the founder of the company) was shortlisted for the 2021 Forbes China Under 30 Elite List Candidates" and so on.
The first release of financing news is not an authoritative media
What's even stranger is that such a high-profile company doesn't even have a formal official website. According to the Enterprise Investigation App, the main body of the company is Shanghai Tianyi Trading Co., Ltd., which was established on March 23, 2020, the legal representative and actual controller is Xu Hailiang, with a shareholding ratio of 100%, and the company's subscribed capital contribution is 1 million yuan.
Baidu Encyclopedia shows that Xu Hailiang is the founder of a number of companies, and has a selfie video saying: "I was born in Tianjin, I am currently an entrepreneur, my hobbies are reading, chess, thinking. ”
Founder information on Baidu Encyclopedia