Chaos Demon King Zhang Ye

Zhang Ye

Founder of Tsingshan Capital

Investment cases

Transfer Group, Daily Black Qiao, Pidan, Take a Little Time, Bosie, Shark Fit, Ucommune Workshop (NASDAQ:UK), etc

VCPE Reference (vcpecankao) original

Author | Li Zixuan

Edited | Tube lost

Recently, the transfer completed the D+ round of financing led by Xiaomi Group of 100 million US dollars, coupled with the previously announced C round of financing of 390 million US dollars, and the financing of the transfer of its to B trading platform, the total financing amount of the transfer group has reached nearly 550 million US dollars in the past six months.

After completing the merger with Finder last year, the transfer has grown rapidly, with the entire group revenue increasing by more than 100% year-on-year and the transaction GMV increasing by 56% year-on-year in May 2021. The merger was facilitated by two VCs that are not well-known in the industry, Castle Peak Capital and Plum Blossom Ventures.

In 2017, Zhang Ye of Green Mountain Capital and Wu Shichun of Meihua Venture Capital invested in finding a beautiful opportunity. Zhang Ye followed up to help communicate the company's strategy and deal with the supply chain, and Wu Shichun brokered the merger of turnaround and looking for beautiful opportunities. The combined transfer is valued at more than $1.8 billion. Find the founder of The Beautiful Machine, Wen Yan, is the president of the transfer group company.

The winner behind this is Tsingshan Capital, as the largest institutional shareholder of Find Liangji, when the two sides merged, Tsingshan Capital only partially withdrew and reaped a cash return of 240 million yuan, at present, Tsingshan Capital still holds about 12% of the shares of Find Liangji.

This is the opportunity to write about Tsingshan Capital. From being disliked by entrepreneurs to developing into a famous early fund, in this process, Zhang Ye, the founder of Tsingshan Capital, like Sun Wukong, was reborn after the disaster.

01

Investors who are disliked by entrepreneurs

Zhang Ye, the founder of Tsingshan Capital, invested in two projects with high returns at the beginning.

He first entered the investment circle to do GP, no one sheltered, in this circle there is no network, resources, do not understand the rules, mistakenly hit the wrong collision, rely on the recommendation of friends to successfully invest in the project, but also when they are looking for a project, they are let go of the pigeons by entrepreneurs.

In 2013, when Zhang Ye officially began to do angel investment, he was catching up with the outlet of online education, hundreds of companies jumped out to do education, and Zhang Ye came into contact with homework treasure under the recommendation of friends. This is a question analysis product. At that time, the founder was still working at Tencent, and Zhang Ye ran downstairs to Tencent, chatted with each other for more than an hour, and gave the first angel investment.

Zhang Ye just entered the industry, his understanding of the Internet and education is limited, and there is no basis for judging investment, but he feels the "hunger and thirst" of this entrepreneur.

He rented a house in the neighborhood where the founder of Homework Treasure lived, ate and lived with the team, and also participated in setting strategies, talking about cooperation and even entering test questions, almost starting a business together. A year later, the homework treasure was acquired by the operation together, and Zhang Ye received a lot of returns.

After that, Zhang Ye met the game social platform Fishing Moon Dog. Li Bojing, the founder of The Moon Dog, is the author of the world of Warcraft game video, nicknamed the Leper Wolf. Coinciding with the rise of the mobile Internet, many investors are more optimistic about mobile games, and focus on the financing difficulties of the moon dog on the PC side.

Zhang Ye is also a player in the World of Warcraft, has seen the video of the wolf, and also knows the competitive gameplay of the terminal game, he feels that although the market share of the mobile game is increasing, it will certainly not reach the level of the terminal game in the short term. And the moon dog team not only understands competitive games, but also has a fan base, which is rare.

Zhang Ye saw that he wanted to vote, but it was not smooth. Qingshan Capital is too nameless, and the entrepreneurs do not know who Qingshan is or who Zhang Ye is. At the end of 2013, Zhang Ye went to Hainan for a vacation, and he made an appointment with the wolf twice, and then when Zhang Ye went to Guangzhou to make another appointment, he only met. The wolf was also surprised, "He's still quite interesting, I let him pigeon twice, and he actually ignored me."

Dead beggar Bai Lai played some role, Zhang Ye finally cast it, but it may not have been much. When talking about the financing process, Zhang Zizhang rarely mentioned this past, and was more grateful for the 2 million emergency investment of another institution, Qingsong Capital.

In 2017, the annual revenue of Laoyue Dog exceeded 30 million yuan, and in 2018, Laoyue Dog received a 200 million yuan C round financing from Tiantu Capital, and Zhang Ye withdrew in this year and reaped a return of 210 times. Since then, the moon dog has kept a low profile, rarely disclosing the company's dynamics and performance, and has not received new financing in the past two years. According to the latest reports, The Moon Dog is currently monetizing by playing with the business and cooperating with e-sports clubs.

02

Make friends with Wu Shichun

With his previous experience, Zhang Ye felt that it was important to be famous, and he quickly found a way.

Expanding his network is a compulsory course, Zhang Ye's previous identity, musician and businessman have no aura, he needs someone to take him.

At the beginning of the establishment of Qingshan Capital, Zhang Ye and Wu Shichun were deeply bound.

In 2012, Zhang Ye came to Beijing alone with tens of millions of dollars earned from the coal trade.

In 2014, Wu Shichun founded Meihua Venture Capital, and before that, he earned a return of 647.6 million yuan by investing 400,000 yuan in Crab Technology. Earlier, he worked in Huawei and Baidu, and founded Kuxun Network with Chen Hua, who later founded the Sing Bar, and had many connections in the circle. He is sociable and has met many investors and entrepreneurs by video numbers, PR and Texas Hold'em poker hobbies.

How strong is Wu Shichun's connections, in Zhang Ye's words, Wu Shichun is the key node. Chen Hua jokingly said, "Even if you want to find a feng shui master, he can turn over a person."

Zhang Ye and Wu Shichun are both investors from the wild road, and they feel sorry for each other, and both of them love to play Depu and chat more closely.

In the first few years, the two always invested in projects together. In 2014, Tsingshan Capital invested in 9 projects, 8 of which were invested with Meihua Venture Capital, and later Wu Shichun simply pulled Chen Hua to become the LP of Tsingshan Capital. This has continued in the years since.

Zhang Ye also has similarities with Wu Shichun in doing PR, and he is more proactive. In the report about Zhang Ye, Zhang Ye mentioned the experience of studying composition at the Kochakovsky Conservatory, there was a need for the media to find stories, and there was also his trend.

In addition, in the early years, Wu Shichun called himself "fast wolf", publicized his investment decisions fast, three minutes to pay, Zhang Ye also took this as a label, until now on the home page of the official website of Qingshan Capital, still "fast" as a major investment style, known as "the fastest investment institution in history".

But it is also understandable that when the organization is not famous and has few resources, "fast" is also a way to attract entrepreneurs.

03

Pull stars into the company

In 2018, the topic of "a billion chasing star Jia Jingwen" was on the hot search, that is, at the press conference to find a beautiful machine to complete the 110 million yuan A+ round of financing, looking for The founder of the beautiful machine Wen Yanjie and Jia Jingwen, who had invested in the company, Wen Yanjie promised to help his idol Jia Jingwen earn a hundred million yuan in one year, if he won, Jia Jingwen would go to find a beautiful machine as the chief customer service for 3 days, and if he lost, he would donate 1 million to the public welfare organization designated by Jia Jingwen.

This matter gave enough exposure to find a beautiful machine, and the same attention was paid to, as well as Jia Jingwen's friend who introduced herself to find a beautiful machine - Zhang Ye.

Pulling stars to make investments was once one of Zhang Ye's labels, which began with a project he and Wu Shichun had saved.

In the summer of 2014, Zhang Ye and Wu Shichun talked about the project, and the two felt that there was no good product for domestic headphones, so they wanted to save a project to make headphones. It is said that Zhang Ye originally had a personal relationship with Wang Feng, and when they first chatted, Wang Feng also expressed this intention. After pulling Wang Feng as a director, they found Peng Jinzhou, who was the vice president of Huawei Glory, as CEO; former Plantronics employees were responsible for sound effects; and German DA (Design Affairs) was responsible for design.

Tsingshan Capital, Plum Blossom Venture Capital and Wang Feng, among others, invested $10 million in it, and Wang Feng was a mentor for the "Voice of China" variety show, and this headset also appeared on the show. Last year, the project received nearly 100 million yuan in series A+ financing.

The matter of Lawangfeng making headphones itself also has a high degree of topic, Zhang Ye made a wave of publicity, and the fame of Qingshan Capital went up a step. Wang Feng and Zhang Ziyi also became LPs of Tsingshan Capital.

Celebrity networking is also the competitiveness of Tsingshan Capital. When Zhang Ye was optimistic about taking a moment to invest, founder Zhu Yueyi had already received offers from two angel investments, and the two did not reach an intention when they first met. That night, Zhang Ye asked Zhu Yueyi to come to the office for an interview again. The next day, the two talked from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Zhu Yueyi still did not agree to accept the investment.

At that time, there were already O2O projects for flowers such as Fauvism and Flower Plus on the market, and it had already received many rounds of investment. Zhang Ye told Zhu Yueyi to spend some time now there is no first-mover advantage, asked what can help the project, Zhu Yueyi thought for a moment, said that if there is a star endorsement, it will have an advantage in brand communication, Zhang Ye quickly thought that Gao Yuanyuan's temperament and spend some time are very compatible, immediately call Gao Yuanyuan, the result is that Gao Yuanyuan very happily agreed, expressing his willingness to invest with Qingshan Capital. Takamoto is now also the LP of Aoyama.

Saving stars into the project has become a signboard of Qingshan Capital, and fame and project have been harvested. In fact, many of the projects that Zhang Ye had saved had died prematurely, and the "saving projects" were on the one hand out of helplessness. Zhang Ye lacked contacts in his early years of investment, more is to see the outlet and the track, some tracks Zhang Ye is very optimistic, but suffering from not finding a good project, he wants to save a team that he is satisfied with.

04

Rock 'n' roll youth becomes businessman

Zhang Ye was born in 1983 in Qitaihe, Heilongjiang. His parents were intellectuals busy with further education, and Zhang Ye lived with his grandparents since he was a child. When he was a child, he was timid and sensitive, and his grandfather renamed him "Wild", and later he did not take the usual path.

Shortly after Zhang Ye's birth, Chinese rock music flourished, and a group of young people were influenced by this to join the angry tide. Zhang Ye said that most of his youth was angry, and when he was in junior high school, he formed a band with a few friends, with long hair, long earrings, and sang in the bar every day, "singing about life, society, struggle", and with the anger of that age.

After his 18th birthday, Zhang Ye chose to go to the Tchaikovsky Academy in Russia to study composition. Some people in the band chose to continue singing, such as Wang Zhuo, who entered the final four of "The Voice of China" in 2014, and Liu Jinze, who became famous through "China Good Songs" in 2016.

In Russia, Zhang Ye is like a thorn in the head, when he encounters the unfair treatment of Chinese people, he stands up to organize protests, and on several occasions, he has become a Chinese student leader and openly led student protests.

In his freshman year, Zhang Ye won the grand prize of the "Prokofiev International Composition Competition" with a prize of 3,000 US dollars. He was the first Chinese to win in the competition, and the Chinese Embassy contacted Zhang Ye and asked him to submit materials for publicity in the country. But in time for the Wenchuan earthquake, when Zhang Ye came to the embassy, the door was crowded with Chinese people donating supplies. Zhang Ye left without handing in the information and donated all the prize money of the competition to the disaster area.

Zhang Ye said that this incident had a great impact on him, and in the face of disaster, the role played by musicians was too small, but the power of wealth was strong and direct.

This is where change begins. During his studies in Russia, Zhang Ye relied on the coal mine resources of his hometown to do Sino-Russian coal trade, and when he saw China's real estate boom, he made real estate bridge loans and made a lot of money. From Angry Qing and Thorn Head to Businessman, Zhang Ye completed his transformation.

Later, he watched the movie "Social Network", telling the story of Facebook's founding and development, in which the life of investors attracted Zhang Ye, who went to high-end forums, gave speeches, and could become a company like Facebook.

At that time, Zhang Ye decided to become an investor.

Angel investing is hard to do. In the third quarter of 2019, compared with the same period in 2018, China's early investment fell sharply by more than 60%, and more than 80% of investors have left the market since 2017.

Investors have their own magic, and Zhang Ye is the same. Once the thorn head, learn to do PR, set up people, pull star endorsements, a variety of tricks, and strive to create momentum.

After several years of high profile, Zhang Ye iterated on the method. Since 2013, Tsingshan Capital has only invested in more than 90 projects in more than 8 years. At first, they were all co-invested with Wu Shichun's Meihua Venture Capital, and there were more Internet projects. Since 2017, Tsingshan Capital's investment project has not been so deeply bound to Plum Blossom Venture Capital, and the proportion of investment consumption has gradually increased.

He summarized such an exploration as a refined management of the fund. According to Zhang Ye, in the first phase of the fund, he put 4 projects in the high-risk echelon, each project accounting for 10% of the total fund size, and at the same time, in order to hedge the risk, the investment project focused on the consumer field. Therefore, 60% to 70% of Tsingshan Capital's projects are in the field of consumption, and 30% to 40% of the projects are in the fields of science and technology and the Internet.

Zhang Ye said that such a configuration made the IRR of the first two phases of Tsingshan Capital's angel fund reach 58% and 98%, and the IRR of the first two special funds reached 106% and 93%.

In the past two years, Tsingshan Capital has invested in many popular consumer goods companies, such as bossie, daily black qiao, daily box, plus taste and shark fit and other consumer brands, these brands soon got a new round of financing, Hillhouse, IDG, Wuyuan, source code, ByteDance and other investment institutions, companies appeared in the ranks of follow-up investors.