Text: XiaoQing
On April 12, Forbes released the "Oscars" of the investment world, the "2022 List of the World's Best Venture Capitalists". Sequoia China's Shen Nanpeng ranked No. 3, and the biggest winner was Silicon Valley's hot investors in cryptocurrencies and fintechs. However, Shen Nanpeng's position in the venture capital circle can not be underestimated, and he is also known as the "Chinese Buffett" who "won half of China's Internet".
Shen Nanpeng has entered the top 3 for the fifth consecutive year and continues to rank first in Chinese investment, and even ranked 2nd last year. His Sequoia Capital has been committed to Internet investment, and There are Sequoia figures behind Meituan, Ele.me, Didi, AutoNavi and Pinduoduo.
In Ma Huateng's eyes, Shen Nanpeng is the absolute king of venture capital and a legend that can be written into textbooks. But for all the projects that Tencent decided to invest in, Sequoia had already decided to start as early as a year or two. Therefore, Ma Huateng is a loyal fan of Shen Nanpeng and will also introduce Shen Nanpeng's talent in mathematics to others. However, Shen Nanpeng does not have a strong family background, how did he become a big man in the investment community?
In 1967, Shen Nanpeng was born into an ordinary family in Haining, Zhejiang Province. At the age of 7, he entered Shanghai No. 2 Primary School. He has shown a strong learning ability since he was a child, and in the impression of teachers and classmates, Shen Nanpeng is a prodigy who has never forgotten. Therefore, he is always called a god-like existence, a typical representative of "other people's children".
Shen Nanpeng not only has a good memory, but also a mathematical genius. At the age of 15, he won the first prize in the National Mathematical Olympiad, and later won the first place in the overseas division of the Mathematics Competition for Middle School Students in the United States. Descriptions such as "mathematical genius" and "Olympic champion" seem to be born for Shen Nanpeng. Therefore, after graduating from high school at the age of 18, he was directly sent to the Mathematics Department of Shanghai Jiao Tong University for further study.
Shen Nanpeng's path in the field of mathematics is unimpeded, and he graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and successfully entered the Department of Mathematics of Columbia University. He had a pleasant journey there, but also broadened his horizons and met more mathematical geniuses. However, while opening his horizons, he was also aware of his future development.
Therefore, Shen Nanpeng gave up Columbia University and set his sights on the Wall Street financial market and immersed himself in the study of the US securities market. At that time, his financial industry in the United States was like a drop in the ocean, so he returned to China and immersed himself in studying the future direction of the country, that is, the Internet industry.
"Even if you sit in a high position, you are still working for foreigners after all." China's Internet economy and capital market are a blue ocean, why not go to the wider world to do a big job? ”
In 1999, Shen Nanpeng founded Ctrip, and after three financings, under the outbreak of SARS in 2003, he still overcame all difficulties to become the fourth Internet company in China to successfully list, and its stock price rose across the board. And he founded more than one company.
In 2002, Shen Nanpeng founded Homeinns, which accurately hit the Chinese hotel chain consumer market in terms of positioning, service and price. Homeinns hotel was rapidly upgraded and became the first hotel in China to be successfully listed overseas in 2006. In just a few years, Shen Nanpeng has made remarkable achievements. In the face of public surprise and praise, he was not shocked, after all, he was "a man who bought the entire Chinese Internet."
Shen Nanpeng co-founded sequoia Capital China Fund with Sequoia Capital in 2005 and officially began his journey in the Internet field. "Standing at the cusp of the storm, just in time", China's Internet era broke out, and the entire industry gave birth to one startup after another overnight. As a result, Sequoia China soon expanded its business areas and even swallowed up all of its competitors one by one.
Today, Sequoia China has penetrated into all aspects of life and is a shareholder behind well-known enterprises such as Meituan, Alibaba, Boss Direct, Dingdong Grocery, Rong Lianyun and Xiaopeng Motors. Forward-looking foresight and unique insights, as well as the unimaginable efforts and sweat behind Shen Nanpeng, have created today's King of Chinese venture capital.
Shen Nanpeng also expressed his views on entrepreneurship and investment. He believes that the ability of the founders and the team is very important, but more importantly, the people on the team must be reliable, honest, and not deceive investors. At the same time, it is also necessary to have a certain degree of execution, which is the key node that determines whether the startup can obtain funds after the start-up period, if there is no execution, all ideas and long-term goals are empty words, and it is necessary to find a partner with strong execution.
Entrepreneurship must go with the wind, and the direction of entrepreneurship is a very important thing, because this is the first choice, which can determine the momentum of future development. At the same time, it is also necessary to combine the real-time dynamics of the moment, including the Internet, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, which are changing all aspects of China's service industry and manufacturing industry. Shen Nanpeng's large reduction in the US group has attracted widespread attention in the market.
On March 31, Shen Nanpeng reduced his holding of 25.578 million shares of Meituan to cash out HK$3.934 billion; on April 6, he reduced his holding of Meituan by 12.964 million shares and cashed out HK$2.097 billion. In just one year, he cashed out more than HK$30 billion on Meituan.
Where Wang Xing founded Meituan, his definition of Meituan is a company without boundaries. After Meituan became the third largest Internet company in China by market capitalization, Shen Nanpeng began to reduce his holdings in Meituan's shares, especially when Meituan's market value soared, he also intensively reduced his holdings, cashing out more than 20 billion yuan that year. There is no doubt that Shen Nanpeng has become the big winner of the success of the US group.
When Wang Xing founded the METUan, Shen Nanpeng began to lay out from the A round. Therefore, even if the stock price of Meituan Company falls to the stock price at the time of listing, Shen Nanpeng is still making a lot of money. And although Meituan has done a lot of business over the years, most of the other businesses other than Internet takeaway are in a state of loss. At the same time, the future society is bound to be people-oriented, although the US group has millions of takeaway riders, but if the relationship between the riders and the US group can not be handled well, it is also a huge hidden danger.
In general, Shen Nanpeng, Zhang Lei, Xu Xin and other domestic first-line investors basically have the same experience, they all learned advanced investment concepts in foreign countries, and then returned to domestic venture capital. According to Shen Nanpeng's current investment career, he has not yet reached the peak. Do you think he'll be the number one in the world in venture capital?