The men behind the "courtesan" Luo Yonghao

Text/Sun Pengyue

Edit/Gale

Luo Yonghao, who officially announced his "withdrawal from the Internet" last year, has never come down on the hot search.

First, he created a new AR company, and obtained 50 million yuan of financing with a company with a registered capital of 100,000 yuan, with a valuation of more than 200 million; Then he abandoned it and became one of the top anchors with the largest shipments on Double 11; The turmoil continues, and recently I was denounced by my former friends for faking "true and passing", and I also had to invest in the performance...

Luo Yonghao, it seems that these three words mean traffic passwords.

This year is Luo Yonghao's 14th year of entrepreneurship, from teachers, entrepreneurs, anchors, stand-up comedians, every new identity switch has caused heated discussions in the outside world. It is a pity that Luo Yonghao, who has reached the age of knowing the destiny of heaven, has always had the title of "the dark lamp of the industry", and the companies he founded have not achieved a good beginning.

But what is most impressive is not his undaunted entrepreneurial spirit, nor his sharp eloquence, but the luxurious family and friends behind him. No matter whether Luo Yonghao is down or adverse, there is always a group of "white knights" who throw a lot of money for him.

Zinc Finance also explored the "men" behind Luo Yonghao one by one.

Niubo Network: Huang Bin

Luo Yonghao's first venture was after resigning from New Oriental in 2006 and founding Niubo.com. And the financial support for him is his friend Huang Bin.

Huang Bin graduated from Stanford University, worked as a national training manager in Shell's HR department, and also worked as a GRE and STA teacher at New Oriental. Huang Bin learned about Luo Yonghao because of "Old Luo Quotes", and the two hit it off, intending to partner to create a Niubo network that is as diverse as possible, has multiple voices, and does not have abnormal tendencies.

At that time, Niubo.com did not attract any investment, because the funds were limited, there were only 3 formal employees, Luo Yonghao was responsible for inviting authors and daily page editors, Huang Bin was the CEO responsible for the technical development and maintenance of the website, and a clerk did simple text pasting work.

At that time, it was the ancient Internet, the blog era with the purpose of hype marketing to fight for the position, Luo Yonghao's Niubo network was known for its seriousness, and invited Han Han, Feng Tang, Xue Zhaofeng, Li Yinhe, He Caitou, Miao Wei and a large number of other "elites" to write articles on Niubo network to export ideas.

Subject to various reasons from the outside world, Niubo.com was shut down after only two years of establishment, but Luo Yonghao made a large group of friends with the strong exposure of Niubo.com. Among them, the one who helped him the most was Feng Tang. Feng Tang, who has been a doctor, writer and executive, is undoubtedly a legend, not only one of the big Vs published by Niubo.com, Feng Tang also participated in the investment of Niubo.com.

Feng Tang and Luo Yonghao

After the collapse of Niubo.com, Luo Yonghao was forced to start a second stage of entrepreneurship and established "Lao Luo English" to return to the old line of English training. The start-up capital is 3 million yuan from Feng Tang's investment.

Luo Yonghao commented on Feng Tang: "To do a line into a line, the most valuable thing is the ability to do it." Although Lao Luo English only opened for more than three years and closed down early, Feng Tang and Luo Yonghao's contact remained until they made friends.

After Luo Yonghao was in debt of 600 million yuan, Feng Tang suggested that Luo Yonghao transform into a live broadcast and let him set up Starry Sky Yewang Company to participate in shares and make friends. In the end, Starry Sky Yewang was quickly valued by capital with a valuation of hundreds of millions, and successfully helped Luo Yonghao pay off his debts in just four years.

Hammer Technology: Tang Yan

On April 8, 2012, Luo Yonghao, who was not willing to be lonely, started his third entrepreneurial project, posting a high-profile announcement on Weibo: "Next week, I will register a new company and start making mobile phones." ”

This is the peak of Luo Yonghao's reputation, at that time, Luo Yonghao had a start-up capital gap of 10 million yuan, and after knowing the news, Momo Technology CEO Tang Yan invested 9 million yuan in Hammer Technology. Subsequently, Tang Yan also introduced "bigwigs" such as Li Yong, CEO of Ape Question Bank, Fang Sanwen, CEO of Xueqiu Finance, and Wu Yongming, founder of Alibaba, and Sheng Yifei.

In this batch of Luo Yonghao's luxurious family and friends group, the most contributor is Wu Yongming, as one of Ali's eighteen arhats, who gave 9 million angel round financing at the beginning of Hammer's business; In Luo Yonghao's new AR startup Thin Red Line, Wu Yongming continued to invest.

Luo Yonghao, who has repeatedly lost battles, seems to have been willing to provide friends who are willing to help on the road to entrepreneurship.

Source: Web

Even Zheng Gang, the founder of Zihui Venture Capital, who recently posted an article to blast him, was once a senior "Luo Chui", often touting Luo Yonghao as "Chinese Jobs" in public. In May 2013 and April 2014, Zihui Venture Capital participated in the A and B rounds of angel financing of Hammer Technology.

Even in 2018, when Hammer Technology collapsed, Zheng Gang was still firmly optimistic about the valuation of Hammer Technology worth 30 billion, and needed to give Lao Luo more time to achieve it: "30 billion is nothing for Lao Luo, an entrepreneur who is destined to affect the spirit of a generation." ”

It can be seen that the relationship between Zheng Gang and Luo Yonghao is not only an ordinary investor, but also a "friend of acquaintances".

It is worth mentioning that in 2016, Ali did not make an investment delivery with Hammer Technology on schedule, and Hammer Technology fell into a capital chain crisis. In order to raise funds, Luo Yonghao borrowed money everywhere. However, the well-known old Lai Jia Yueting who "returned to China next week" did not want to pledge the equity, so he directly borrowed 100 million yuan to Luo Yonghao for emergency relief.

Being able to borrow money from Jia Yueting shows the magic of Luo Yonghao's "making a friend".

Bullet SMS: Big capital

In 2018, Hammer Technology began to collapse, Luo Yonghao chose "software rescue" and launched the social tool "Bullet SMS" to save the declining Hammer mobile phone.

Luo Yonghao said triumphantly: "Just after the press conference, Tencent's investment department called and asked to talk to our team to see the investment situation. Immediately afterwards, bullet SMS ranked first in the overall App Store list for many days, becoming a hot new favorite in the investment world.

According to Luo Yonghao, "The strategic investment departments of 51 VCs and 7 technology giants have contacted bullet SMS, but the A round of financing bullet SMS has only met less than one-tenth of investment institutions. According to 36kr reports: investment institutions and giants including Tencent, Toutiao, Baidu, Sequoia, etc. have all participated in the competition for the "bullet SMS" Series A round of financing; Within 7 days of its launch, Bullet SMS completed a round of financing of 150 million yuan, with a valuation of 600 million.

Bullet SMS

But the development of bullet SMS once again verified the authenticity of the "industry dark light", after experiencing a wave of light-speed growth after the launch, the data began to plummet, 3 months after the product was released, daily active users (daily active users) dropped to more than 100,000, and the daily download volume was only 2% of the peak period.

In the end, it ended sloppily again.

Make a friend: Huang He

In November 2018, Hammer Technology began to collapse and was visited by various suppliers to collect debts. It was revealed that he owed about 600 million yuan to banks, partners and suppliers, and Luo Yonghao was also subject to a consumption restriction order.

After experiencing the failure of Hammer Technology, Luo Yonghao, who had a debt of 600 million, entered the live broadcast and began his debt repayment career.

The operating company of Luo Yonghao's live broadcast room is Beijing Make a Friend Digital Technology Co., Ltd., and the legal representative is Huang He, who is also one of Luo Yonghao's family and friends group. As early as the era of hammer technology, Huang He served as the company's product director, and he once again chose to start a business with Luo Yonghao after Luo Yonghao became a veteran.

Luo Yonghao and Zhu Xiaomu

Not only Huang He, Luo Yonghao when he first started live broadcasting, his most important deputy broadcaster Zhu Xiaomu, and even the old employees who followed him for ten years. As early as the Niubo period, Zhu Xiaomu, who studied in the United States, was one of the contributors, and was later invited by Luo Yonghao to return to China, joined Lao Luo English training institution as a teacher, and joined Hammer Technology as a senior executive.

It can be seen that "making friends" is not just about meeting new friends, but should be called "old friends".

Thin Red Line: Various investors

After two years of live streaming to pay off debts, Luo Yonghao still restarted his fourth business, this time he chose AR. In Luo Yonghao's view, the only one who has done AR is Apple, and the domestic Huami OV has not officially started for various reasons, or at least will not invest in AR soon, so the startups he leads have a chance to enter AR.

In November 2022, Thin Red Line, an AR startup founded by Luo Yonghao, officially announced through the official Weibo Weibo that it has recently completed an angel round of financing of about $50 million. Led by Meituan Dragon Ball, Lanchi Venture Capital, Lenovo Venture Capital, Matrix Partners Venture Capital, DJI, ATM Capital and other investment institutions, Li Wanqiang, Wu Yongming and other technology industry bigwigs personally followed.

According to Tianyan, Thin Red Line is affiliated with Beijing Thin Red Line Technology Co., Ltd., which was established on July 25, 2018, with an early registered capital of only 100,000 yuan. However, Luo Yonghao, with his luxurious family and friends group, quickly raised the overall valuation of this 100,000 yuan company to 200 million US dollars.

Not only that, on January 9, 2023, Luo Yonghao received investment from the US dollar fund again, and the registered capital increased from 100,000 yuan to 100 million yuan; MAJOR SHAREHOLDER CHANGED TO ALWAYS ON TECH PTE. LTD； The business type was changed to "Limited Liability Company (Wholly Foreign Corporation)".

Although Thin Red Line is huge in the early stage, Luo Yonghao said that it still needs three or five years of development time, and the commercialization conditions will be basically mature in about five years.

Source: Thin Red Line Technology

Whether it is an entrepreneur or a anchor with goods, Luo Yonghao has always controlled the traffic password, and the hot search on "debt" and "repayment" has never come down. But Luo Yonghao's drama full of black humor makes this kind of negative news glorified, but this does not change the essence of investors who "obviously lost a lot of money".

In business, investors and founding teams are not the "sweet love songs" of princesses and princes, nor are they "white knights" who give charcoal in disguise. In the venture capital field, where the Internet is a typical test field, conflicts between investors and management are the norm.

In business logic, venture capital means huge wealth returns, and the gift from investors has long been clearly marked with a price.

However, life continues, entrepreneurship continues, debt repayment continues, and the story of Luo Yonghao and investors will continue.