Text | Lin Shan
When capital is still studying how to take money out of the pockets of the post-00s, the post-00s have begun to control capital.
At the end of July, the financing news of Wufeng Technology, a digital marketing company of Internet celebrities, caught our attention. In the company's newly completed A+ round of financing, Douyu only got the identity of follow-up investment, but the leader of the investment was an unknown institution: Egg Raising Unlimited Venture Capital. What is even more amazing is that the founders of Egg Fundraising, Li Dongze and Dai Junming, are two "post-00s".
The full structure of the new institution shows that the two teenagers are not playing tickets. At present, the scale of fund management of egg fundraising is 100 million yuan, and this figure will be expanded to about 1 billion yuan in the next two years. Their vision is to form a "next-generation cultural consumption universe" by investing, and the investment logic is to find projects with different responsibilities according to Tusoji, for example, Wufeng is the entrance to young traffic, and the national comic project they are working on is the source of their own IP.
When I met them in Shanghai, they didn't wear suits and shoes like investors, but wore T-shirts like the young people everywhere on the streets, and they weren't even used to business routines such as handshakes and greetings. However, they do not seem to intend to imitate their predecessors, but are very concerned about preserving their post-00s characteristics. "Because egg fundraising is invested in young entrepreneurs and projects that meet the lifestyle of young people, the image of the post-00s is an advantage rather than a disadvantage." They said to 36Kr.
In wufeng's project, they have revealed a kind of "next-generation investment" that is very different from the traditional.
They didn't pitch through the traditional FA channel to the Wufeng project. As early as 2018, Li Dongze and Dai Junming met the founder Wu Difei when they met the connoisseurs with the "In line" App. At that time, they met with Lei Xiwen, who had been the executive partner and deputy chief operating officer of King & Wood Mallesons, and under the introduction of Lei Xiwen, they consciously met a group of young people who were interested in starting a business, and Wu Difei was one of them. Later, due to his optimism about this group of young people, Lei Xiwen joined Egg Fundraising and Wufeng Technology successively, becoming a partner and CFO respectively.
This logic of "making friends with entrepreneurs first" has been maintained to this day. In addition to similar platform channels, college student business incubators are also an important channel to reach entrepreneurs. At present, Egg Fundraising has established entrepreneurial alliances with several universities in Shanghai and Zhejiang, including Fudan, and regularly communicates with entrepreneurs in the incubator and holds activities.
In the eyes of some investors, a young person who wants to start a business is still some distance away from the real entrepreneur, but in the eyes of Li Dongze and Dai Junming, starting a business is not "too early" because of age. "We can see from ourselves that the post-00 generation will mature earlier, everything will be advanced, and the same is true for entrepreneurship." Li Dongze said. "As long as there is an entrepreneurial gene, even if it fails, it will still try, and such a person will succeed sooner or later." And egg fundraising is to find opportunities to enter in the process of entrepreneur growth.
With such a relationship as a starting point, Egg Hunt and Wu Feng grow together. At that time, Wu Difei had not yet started a business, Li Dongze and Dai Junming had always maintained communication with Wu Difei, and after two years, they could recognize each other's ideas. "Neither we nor Alex (Wu Difei) have ever regarded Wufeng as an MCN with a profit point of 3% per month, and the common understanding is that Wufeng should be the builder, operator and realizer of the future world traffic asset ecology."
Although they were already friends, they still pulled out and did a round of analysis before investing in wufeng. They told 36Kr that the reason why 30% of the funds are taken out to re-position Wufeng, the most important thing is the team: the founder of the post-90s led the post-95s player team to deeply cultivate the post-00s consumer population, high education, internationalization, and study abroad background.
In the view of Li Dongze and Dai Junming, millennials grew up in the 20 years of rapidly increasing national strength, their material needs have been fully met, they have seen more of the world, and their self-confidence has never been higher. Reflected in consumption, it is that this generation pays more attention to spiritual consumption, does not follow the rational consumption logic of the previous generation, and is only willing to pay for its own products. Therefore, there are opportunities for new brands to emerge in all walks of life, as long as they really understand what young people need.
Therefore, for investors, the priority has become to find entrepreneurs and projects that understand young people. This can also explain why "young learning" has almost become an outstanding school in the investment industry in recent years, and there are always investors who use "look at B stations and play blind boxes" to show their sincerity in moving closer to young people. But Egg Fundraising believes that "understanding young people" is not necessarily something that can be learned by the previous generation, but it is an innate ability for young entrepreneurs who grow up in the same environment. Just like every time Li Dongze gets the so-called "For Young People" project, he will take the product to ask his friends around him, if he asks a circle and says that he is not interested and will not buy, then he basically has the confidence to judge that this project cannot be done. This is also why they are very sure that they have the opportunity to "throw the next WeChat": "It must be young people who understand what kind of social networking they need most." ”
If "a generation will have a generation's story", then the stronger sense of body and empathy for new things is obviously the innate advantage of egg recruitment. Dai Junming told 36Kr that although institutions have generally been willing to invest in young people in recent years, many "well-known investors" do not really understand young people's projects, but will use experience to give magnificent guidance, which makes entrepreneurs who originally have a "see the elders" mentality more nervous. In this case, they will prefer to choose eggs that can "play together" with them.
Compared with the track division of traditional funds, the two young investors believe in consumer groups and scenes. At present, Egg Fundraising focuses on the FMCG and entertainment products loved by the post-00s, and enters the hard technology field by supporting the post-00s scientists to start their own businesses. But the future is not prepared to be limited to this, they just want to see the adaptation of young people in various scenarios, is all to meet the material life and spiritual needs of the post-00s any product. As young people grow up, the possibilities for egg recruitment are limitless.
Any logic that can justify itself is reasonable, but logic that has not been verified by practice is meaningless. They understand that this new set of playing methods, this post-00s initiated and operated institutions is not feasible, and they need to use more cases to prove to the market.
As for why they started their careers with investment, Li Dongze and Dai Junming said that it was more out of a sense of responsibility: "Young entrepreneurs need people who really understand and are willing to support them. They say with a kind of candor that is exclusive to teenagers: "Our time has arrived, not that we have to cater to the tastes of the previous generation, but that they have to try to adapt to our lives, because youth is full of infinite possibilities, and we symbolize the future." ”