Knowing that the second time to go to Hong Kong to list, all the shares issued came from early investors, some investors bluntly said that this Hong Kong stock listing is completely the old shareholders cashing out, has always believed in long-term doctrine today's capital is planned to reduce the position of 80%. VCs, including Today Capital, choose to cash out or out of consideration of fundamentals.
Xu Xin, who believes in long-term doctrine, chose to reduce his position by nearly 80%.
On April 11, Zhihu officially submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It should be noted that the shares issued this time have been issued by early investors. For example, Qiming Venture Capital, Innovation Factory and Today Capital, of which Today Capital intends to sell 12 million shares, if the issue price is HK$51.8, the cash amount of Today Capital is about 600 million yuan.
VCs choose to reduce their holdings or out of consideration for the fundamentals. The data shows that in the past two years, the amount of losses in Zhihu has reached nearly 2 billion yuan, and the secondary market has encountered investors voting with their feet, and the stock price has shrunk by more than 70% since listing.
Under its leadership, there are not a few star enterprises in which Today's Capital has invested, such as JD.com, NetEase and other Internet manufacturers, and have made a lot of profits.
The VC queen cashed out 600 million yuan
Knowing the double listing of Hong Kong stocks, the most beneficial may be the VCs behind it.
On April 11, Zhihu officially submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and is expected to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on April 22, with Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase, CICC and CMB as underwriters.
The Hong Kong IPO is proposed to issue 26 million shares. It is worth mentioning that Zhihu stated in the prospectus that the company will not receive any net proceeds from the global offering, and the shareholders of the sale will receive all the net proceeds of the global offering. That is, all the shares in the offering came from early investors.
In addition, the issue price per share does not exceed HK$51.8, compared with the closing price of US stocks on April 11 at US$2.23 per share, or HK$17.48.
Therefore, many investors bluntly said that this Hong Kong stock listing is completely the old shareholders cashing out.
Prior to the listing, Zhihu's shareholding structure was 11.64% held by Chairman Zhou Yuan, 12.02% by Tencent, 9.65% by Innovation Factory, 8.26% by Qiming Venture Capital, 6.72% by Saifu Investment, 6.31% by Kuaishou and 4.84% by Today Capital.
After the completion of the global offering, the shareholding ratios of Innovation Factory, Qiming Venture Capital, Saifu Investment and Today Capital decreased to about 7.28%, 7.24%, 5.69% and 1.05% respectively.
Among them, Xuxin Today Capital can be described as a liquidation-style reduction, and its proposed sale of shares is 12 million shares, accounting for 78% of the total number of shares held.
Looking back at history, Today Capital participated in Zhihu's Series D and F rounds of financing in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Some media said that the cost of its investment was 5.83 US dollars / share.
Based on today's exchange rate of 1:7.84 USD/HKD, Xu Xin's investment cost is HK$45.7. The sale of 12 million shares for HK$51.80 was made, and the cash out amount of Xuxin was about HK$620 million, and the investment income was RMB73 million.
Interestingly, Xu Xin's investment philosophy is: great companies are best never to quit!
The hematopoietic ability is weak, and the road to realization is bumpy
VCs choose to cash out or out of the knowledge of the fundamentals of the results.
Born in 2010, Zhihu was previously a fragrant feast in the eyes of many capitals. Ten years after its inception, the number of users has grown from 200 to 43.1 million.
Interestingly, it is rumored that the earliest 200 users of Zhihu included well-known entrepreneurs and VCs such as Kai-Fu Lee, Wang Xing, Wang Xiaochuan, Xu Xiaoping and Ma Huateng, and in the first 40 days of Zhihu's development, these people created 8,000 questions and 20,000 answers.
Or based on this, in 2011, Kai-Fu Lee's Innovation Factory invested 1.5 million yuan in Zhihu.
There are investment bigwigs sitting on the stage, and I know that the next financing is also very smooth. From 2012 to 2021, Zhihu completed 9 rounds of financing, basically maintaining the speed of annual financing.
Specifically, Qiming Venture Capital is a loyal "fan" of Zhihu, and zhihu's A, B, C, and D rounds of financing have their own figures. Innovation Factory is also particularly partial to Zhihu, in addition to the angel round, it participated in the C and D rounds of financing.
In addition, Internet giants are also scrambling to enter the game. According to the data, Tencent, Sogou, Kuaishou, Ali, and Baidu are all its investors.
And the reason why capital is so sought after is because of its scarcity. Just when its SEC submitted its IPO application, the topic of Zhihu going to the United States for listing was also hotly discussed in the Zhihu APP.
In the first place is Wang Hua, the founding partner of the Innovation Factory, who describes it this way: You can also watch Kuaishou and video numbers without douyin, and if you don't know it, there is no substitute. It can be seen that the outside world's evaluation of Zhihu is high.
With the help of capital, Zhihu successfully landed on the US stock market.
However, the performance of Zhihu in the secondary market is not satisfactory. Since its listing, the stock price has fallen by more than 76%.
Or because of this, capital has chosen to flee from Zhihu. In December last year, 10 shareholders of Zhihu withdrew about 78.1% of the company's shares, which were taken over by Zhou Yuan, the founder of Zhihu, and the reducers included Sogou and Tencent.
The bigger problem is how to improve the hematopoietic ability.
At the beginning of the establishment of Zhihu, its founder Zhou Yuan insisted on not exchanging traffic with low-quality content, which ensured that Zhihu was of excellent quality and made it difficult to make a profit.
In order to solve the problem of profitability, Zhihu began to update its business from 2018 to 2019. For example, in 2018, a new "video" community was added. A year later, the live broadcast function was launched, and at the end of the year, it launched the logo of the updated "red packet party" that imitated Douyin and Pinduoduo, and shared the new one through red packets.
By 2020, several major monetization businesses such as online advertising, paid memberships, commercial content solutions, and other services are gradually taking shape.
However, even if multiple businesses go hand in hand, it is difficult to solve the situation of knowing perennial losses. The data shows that from 2020 to 2021, its revenue was 1.352 billion yuan and 2.959 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to the mother was -518 million yuan and -1.299 billion yuan, respectively, with a year-on-year change of 48.46% and -150.97%, respectively.
The high marketing expenses are the main reason for its losses, and the data shows that in the past two years, the cost of this part is 1.031 billion and 2.325 billion, respectively.
Xu Xin's investment map
Zhihu, who was "abandoned" by Xu Xin, is only the tip of the iceberg of his investment territory.
Xu Xin is the founder of Today Capital, and Xu Xin Fortune ranks 1483th among the world's richest people with a value of 16 billion yuan.
According to Tianyan, Xuxin Today Capital independently manages a $2.5 billion fund, mainly from a number of well-known overseas investment institutions.
IT orange information shows that Xuxin Today Capital has an investment scale of more than 100 million yuan in a single project, 53 with an investment amount of tens of millions of yuan, and 24 with an investment amount of millions of yuan. From the perspective of investment rounds, the main investment of capital today is concentrated in series A and B.
Counting its investment history, there is no shortage of star companies in the capital market. For example, well-known enterprises include JD.com, Dianping, Meituan, Ctrip, NetEase, Three Squirrels and Good Shop.
In addition, behind the key supply enterprises in the Shanghai epidemic, Dingdong buys vegetables, there is also today's capital figure. According to the data: Today Capital participated in three rounds of financing for Dingdong to buy vegetables.
Among them, the investment in JD.com made Xu Xin famous in the industry.
According to the data, in 2006, Today Capital invested $10 million in JD.com. In 2014, Xu Xin led other investors to invest an additional US$21 million in Jingdong Mall.
In November 2020, Xu Xin said on his personal social platform that Tencent Holdings bought Tencent shares at five yuan and five hours, and did not sell a single share for 16 years. According to media reports, until JD.com was listed, Today Capital held 7.8% of JD.com's shares, and the market value of JD.com on the first day of listing reached 28.6 billion US dollars, which means that the market value of JD.com shares held by TODAY Capital reached 2.23 billion US dollars, and Xu Xin invested in Jingdong Fuying of more than 2.2 billion US dollars (about 13.9 billion yuan), with a return on investment of more than 70 times.
In addition, its investment in NetEase has obtained 8 times the return, which makes it sit on the throne of the VCS queen.
According to the data, in 1999, Xu Xin injected $5 million into NetEase at a price of $5 per share, and a year later, NetEase successfully landed on the U.S. stock market, and the stock price once soared to $30, but the stock price fell all the way down shortly after listing, and even fell to $0.06 / share in 2001, even so, Xu Xin still chose to hold.
After two years, NetEase has successfully gained a foothold in the game market with "Journey to the West", and founder Ding Lei also sat on the throne of China's richest man in 2003. Xu Xin chose to cash out in 2004, bringing 800% of the shareholders a profit.
Zhihu is only a simple sum in xuxin's investment history, since entering 2022, it has invested in the e-commerce retail business of Dr. Cheese, The Beast of the East, etc., whether it can reproduce the miracle of Jingdong is not yet known.
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