What can happen in 15 years?
The life of a tree has just begun, and the newborn baby grows into a dancing teenager.
Smartphones have achieved popularity in China; domestic mobile communication networks have been upgraded from 3G to 5G; e-commerce has changed people's consumption habits; entrepreneurial "tracks" have changed round after round, many industries have started from scratch, and many companies have died nine times.
In the era of rapid economic development and surging entrepreneurial waves, Zeng Liqing, the founder of Dexun Investment, gave the first angel investment in 2007, and by 2022, Dexun Investment has sold more than 300 projects and has become a professional early-stage investment institution. In the past 15 years, Dexun Investment has explored the effective venture capital logic of travel, established a thriving team, and helped the dreams of many outstanding entrepreneurs. Dexun Investment is like a surfer, from the initial "water playing child" to a skilled "tide maker".
In the past 15 years, Dexun Investment has undergone many changes, and will face entrepreneurs with a new image in the future; and the original intention of "helping entrepreneurs realize their dreams" has never changed, and Dexun Investment will still help entrepreneurs with a piece of sincerity.
From the Internet to hard technology and new consumption,
Establish the underlying investment logic
In 2007, Zeng Liqing, one of the "Five Tigers of Tencent", left Tencent and gave "Taomi Network" an angel investment, and countless "post-00s" loved "Moore Manor" to carry forward, and Dexun Investment also came into being. Four years later, "Taomi.com" was listed on the NASDAQ in the United States, and Dexun Investment continued to bet in the Internet industry. Zeng Liqing did not stop here, and found pleasure in venture capital as a new career.
The Internet industry is developing rapidly, and what supports the continuous iteration of the Internet industry is the ever-changing science and technology. The wave of domestic entrepreneurship has gradually shifted from the Internet to technological innovation, and the focus of Dexun Investment has also shifted to the technology track. Since 2015, Dexun Investment has successively invested in hard technology projects such as "LightAI", "BrainCo", "Yushu Robot", "Jingke Robot", "Vertical and Horizontal Drone", "Small Grae Technology", etc., leaving a footprint in artificial intelligence, drone mapping, biotechnology and other industries.
At the same time, with the upgrading of domestic consumption, new consumption tracks are rising. In 2018, Dexun Investment invested in the ready-to-eat oat brand "Wang Fengfeng", which is favored by young people, laying a good foundation for investment in the new consumption track. Talking about how to "win the first battle", Qi Hai, managing director of Dexun Investment, has a set of methodology of "blind man touching the elephant": "Wang Fengsheng" is not a "good project" in the traditional sense in the early stage of entrepreneurship, there are many controversies in the industry, Dexun Investment seized this time window to conduct full research, thinking and argumentation in various dimensions, and finally decided to shoot. Through this project, Dexun Investment basically put together the "elephant" of the new consumption track, established the basic logic of investment in the consumption track and the project research methodology, and established a solid framework for future investment in the consumer industry.
With the recognition accumulated by this investment, Dexun Investment continues to look for excellent projects and teams in the consumption track. At that time, the ability to sell online was indispensable for consumer projects and one of the key elements for the success of "Wang Full". However, the market is changing rapidly, and early-stage investors need to maintain a keen insight into the trends of the industry. At the end of 2019, Dexun Investment captured the signal that the online time window may soon close, paid more attention to consumer projects with online capabilities and offline capabilities, and successively bet on projects with strong offline teams and online capabilities such as "Good Hope Water", "Empty Card" and "BA Jewelry Bureau". Facts have also proved that with the rapid rise of traffic prices and the gradual disappearance of traffic dividends, consumer projects with strong offline capabilities have shown their advantages in competition, grow rapidly, and returns are naturally generous.
It can be seen that although Dexun Investment was born in the golden age of the Internet, it was not limited to the so-called "strengths", but jumped and danced on the waves of entrepreneurship, looked into the distance, felt the direction, and adjusted the posture at any time.
Pursue the dynamic balance of time, place, and people
In the past 15 years, China's economy has made great progress, and the improvement of mobile Internet infrastructure has brought about innovation in Internet applications, such as Internet instant messaging, mobile video companies, short video companies, etc., followed by model innovation: O2O business, sharing economy from scratch. China's entrepreneurial wave basically follows the basic logic from infrastructure innovation to application innovation to model innovation.
Understanding this logic is especially important for early-stage investors. Venture capitalists are always involved in the budding of an industry, which means that the projects and teams that DSSA are exposed to are often unknown. What kind of entrepreneurial projects will be encountered tomorrow is almost completely unknown, and Dexun Investment needs to rely on its own cognition and judgment to outline the future of entrepreneurial projects. Therefore, the working method of Dexun Investment is "project-driven": first, it is clear what cannot be invested, then, under the overall investment concept, the projects encountered are screened, and finally, research and judgment are conducted. In this uncertainty, Dexun Investment has been working hard to build a dynamic balance of "time, place, and people".
The time of day, that is, the window of time; the geographical advantage, that is, the competitive environment; the people, that is, the entrepreneurial team. Dexun Investment constantly tries to understand the time of day, study geographical advantages, judge people and people. In such a process of finding dynamic balance, the shift in investment focus has naturally been completed: the transformation from the Internet industry to the hard technology track and the new consumption track.
In the investment of the consumer track, Dexun Investment is also judging the time window, analyzing the market environment, and looking for excellent teams. As early as 2019, Dexun Investment intended to lay out the health care product snacking and health food track, and after long-term research and demonstration, decided to enter the company that "dares to directly do health care products". In 2021, Dexun Investment finally found the most suitable project and the best entrepreneurial team, and extended an olive branch to the "hardcore players" in the two consumer goods of "five female doctors" and "original nature".
"The only eternity in the world is change." Investment work, especially venture capital, should always observe changes, fear changes, and adapt to changes.
The original intention has not changed, and the dream is the same
When Dexun Investment was just established, Zeng Liqing more or less carried a "play ticket" mentality and did not regard investment as a too serious job. In the past 15 years, Dexun Investment has accompanied more than 200 startups through a long or short dream journey. Among them, there are many successfully listed companies or high-return projects, but many projects have died, failed or even failed.
"There is only one kind of heroism in the world, that is, to love life after recognizing the truth of life", this sentence is really apt to describe angel investors. Entrepreneurs' dreams are strange, the quality of the founding team is always uneven, entrepreneurship is "nine deaths and a lifetime", and investors have witnessed too many failures. Having seen real money and silver drifting, personally experiencing the failure of the dream and reality game, but still willing to repeatedly invest enthusiasm and sponsor money and experience for dreams, it is the most "long-term" companion of Dexun Investment to entrepreneurs.
"What kind of help can Dexun Investment bring us?" This is a question that founders often ask Qi Hai, and his answer is often: "We can't help you with anything, but Dexun Investment has a lot of successful experiences and failure lessons that can be shared with you." As a financial investor, in addition to providing financial support for enterprises, Dexun Investment will also share the experience gained from countless projects with entrepreneurs. Dexun Investment hopes that these successful cases and failure lessons will make entrepreneurs fall less or be hurt less. "But entrepreneurs are like children, always jumping into puddles without persuasion", Dexun Investment can tolerate the mistakes of entrepreneurs, after all, experience comes from making mistakes.
Having seen too many entrepreneurs oscillate between dreams and reality, Dexun Investment is becoming more and more adept at helping them find a sense of balance in the shocks – both looking up at the stars and being down-to-earth. This is precisely what many entrepreneurs find difficult to grasp, and founders who work hard from the bottom may not be able to see long-term opportunities, while big dreamers sometimes ignore the small details of real gun combat.
Early investing is called "angel investing" precisely because of the risk, long cycle, and volatile returns. Dexun Investment uses its own funds in the early investment process of 15 years, and the accurate investment vision brings good returns, and Dexun Investment and entrepreneurs have achieved "two-way rushing". In this process, Dexun Investment has witnessed many young entrepreneurs grow into tough entrepreneurs through continuous training and beating. They are good at thinking, perseverance and hard work, which is the common portrait of successful entrepreneurs, and it is also the person that Dexun Investment is always looking for.
From one person to a group of people, from small "home" to "everyone"
Early investment institutions often give people a sense of mystery, and the focus, rigorous research, and fierce investment of Dexun investment is a sharp impression on the industry. However, dexun investment has a rather warm "home" culture.
The team of Dexun Investment is the shaper of this "home" culture and also enjoys the care of this home. The dream of Dexun Investment achievement is not only for entrepreneurs, but also for everyone in the team.
The team of Dexun Investment consists of a group of smart, hard-working young people and industry veterans with rich entrepreneurial experience. Young people bring fresh perspectives and imagination for future life, and mature investors use experience to "escort". At Dexun Investment, every investment manager needs to complete the whole chain from project collection to research decision-making, which is why the team of Dexun Investment has grown rapidly. Fu Hao, executive director of Dexun Investment, believes that "the essence of investment is the realization of cognition", and Qi Hai agreed, believing that poor cognition is an opportunity and risk for early institutions. Therefore, Dexun Investment requires the team to deepen the industry research step by step - "look up at the stars, down-to-earth", form a recognition of the industry through continuous learning and thinking, and form and accumulate cognition in practice and "making mistakes". The process may be slow and gradual, but through the study of one project after another, the knowledge of the industry and the track accumulated by Dexun Investment has enabled Dexun Investment to make decisive judgments and fierce shots when encountering good "racing drivers".
"In the big family of Dexun Investment, the seniors will teach their own experience, and the ideas and opinions of young people will be respected." The whole team works together to continuously shape and expand cognition in order to "capture" high-quality projects again and again.
On the other hand, all of the invested companies of Dexun Investment are participants in the "home" culture. Qi Hai himself was like this. In 2008, entrepreneur Qi Hai got angel investment from Dexun Investment, and 10 years later, Qihai's company developed steadily, and he became a partner of Dexun Investment and began his investment career. In dexun investment, this kind of case is jokingly called "laid-off CEO re-employment" more than one case, in fact, each time period of Dexun investment always has several "resident" entrepreneurs, they use their own practical experience to select projects, Dexun investment gives them a high-latitude perspective to think, for the new entrepreneurial plan to save energy.
From the family office formed on a whim in 2007 to the "serious" early investment institution today, Dexun Investment has changed a lot: from a person to a group of people, becoming more rigorous, more professional, becoming logical and clear, becoming clear and goal-oriented. However, the original intention of "helping entrepreneurs realize their dreams" has not changed, nor has the curiosity to expand cognition and explore the world.
In 15 years, a bottle of fine wine has just produced an aging aroma; the life of a bowhead whale has been carried out for less than one-tenth, and countless great dreams are sprouting. In the next 15 years, Dexun Investment will continue to accompany entrepreneurs and pursue their dreams.