On October 30, The official Weibo of Cloud Bird Technology released a Weibo that "denounced the CEO". On November 1, Yunniao employees received an internal announcement showing that the company's cash flow had dried up and decided to file for bankruptcy.
On November 2, the official WeChat public account of logistics company Yunniao Technology "Yunniao Delivery" published an article titled "Ten Questions about Han Yi, CEO of Yunniao Technology, What's wrong with deleting Weibo in anger?" When will the employee driver money be repaid? " to the recently declared bankruptcy of Yunniao Technology and CEO Han Yi issued ten questions. A large number of Cloud Bird employees and platform drivers spoke out: "Nearly 3,000 employees have not been paid for three months, and tens of thousands of drivers have not settled the freight with hundreds of millions of deposits."
Cloud Bird Technology, which once appeared on the Hurun Global Unicorn List, has also been favored by a large number of capitals. And now, the head companies of the same city freight have either been listed or are planning to go public, in this life-and-death traffic war, why did Cloud Bird end up so dismal, and how did its opponents stand firm?
Founded in November 2014, Cloud Bird Technology is an Internet platform dedicated to "same-city supply chain distribution". CEO Han Yi has rich entrepreneurial experience before founding Cloud Bird Technology.
He is the founder and CEO of Microcast, the founder and CEO of Magic Dragon International, and the vice president of Silicon Valley Dynamics.
(Pictured is Han Yi, CEO of Cloud Bird)
According to the official website of CloudBird Technology, Wutong and Thunderbird are the two core plates of Cloudbird Technology. Wutong is a same-city freight business based on the freight of B-end enterprise users, and Thunderbird is a new section launched in November 2020, providing truck leasing business.
The former cloud bird is also the "fragrant feast" in the eyes of capital. In January 2015, Yunniao Technology raised a round of 10 million US dollars, in July of the same year, it obtained tens of millions of dollars of B round financing, in January 2016, C round financing of 100 million US dollars, in February 2017 d round financing of 100 million US dollars, investors include Shanda Capital, Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners China, GSR, Warburg Pincus Investment Group.
On November 5, 2019, in the "Shimao Strait • 2019 Third Quarter Hurun Greater China Unicorn Index" released by the Hurun Research Institute, Yunniao Technology was listed with a valuation of 7 billion yuan. In just two years, the "unicorn" Cloud Bird Technology, which has obtained four rounds of financing, is facing bankruptcy liquidation, arrears of wages, and the disappearance of the boss, which is really regrettable.
Looking closely at its revenue structure, Yunniao Technology does not seem to see the foundation of the same-city freight business. In its business segment, the profit model of the same-city freight business is 4,000 yuan franchise fee and 8% commission per order, while the truck leasing business mainly collects a deposit of 10,000 yuan from the renter and an 8% commission from the owner.
However, whether it is same-city delivery or truck leasing, Yunniao as a platform party does not get much revenue through commissions, but embezzles the driver's franchise fee and deposit into the company's cash flow. The "first question" of "Ten Questions About Yunniao Technology CEO Han Yi" said that the bankruptcy of Yunniao Technology affected more than 19,000 employee drivers, and the driver service fees and deposits involved more than 100 million.
In the third quarter of this year, Cloud Bird started a crazy recruitment model, and the number of employees increased from 2,000 to 3,000 in three months, and the task of these new employees was to find drivers and earn deposits and franchise fees. On the surface, it is to attract people, but in fact it is to attract cash flow. Not only that, Yunniao, which has lost the favor of capital, also uses financial tools "mutual benefit chips" to force employees to buy financial products, tear down the east wall to make up for the west wall, and is already doing the battle of the trapped beasts.
Under the guise of "technology-enabled logistics", Yunniao floats on the concept of "technology" and does not have the essence of a logistics enterprise. Its official website information said that it has been laid out to 50 cities across the country, including first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, but it has been shy about the company's specific operating data. Not only that, in the layout of manpower, material resources and freight networks, Cloud Bird only assumes the role of grafting resources, and has no stable logistics assets, such as transshipment centers, transport vehicles, etc. As a result, Cloudbird did not form a stable and solid ecosystem and became a fragile conceptual platform company.
All this has led to the cloud bird in the gradual Red Sea of the same city freight, has been doing a rootless dispute, like a bird that can not land, and finally exhausted in the middle of the way.
(Zhou Shengfu, founder of Lalala)
In 2013, Zhou Shengfu founded Lalala in Hong Kong, the founder known as the "gambler" has a very legendary experience, as the first ten winners in the history of hong Kong's New Territories, he was a Texas Hold'em player for seven years, in 2009 began to look for entrepreneurial outlets, after 4 years of consideration before the chips "all in" in the same city freight.
As a pioneer of same-city freight transport, Lalala grew up in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and is an Internet logistics mall engaged in enterprise logistics services, moving, LTL, car rental and sales and aftermarket services.
In terms of financing capabilities, Lalala can be described as a leader in the industry, with a total of 8 rounds of financing since its establishment. In 2015, it raised $10 million in angel round financing shortly after its inception. In January, Lalala received a total of $1.5 billion in financing from Series F. From 2015 to date, Lalala has raised a total of US$2.475 billion. News about Lalala's upcoming listing has also been repeatedly reported, but Lalala has never given a clear response to the listing rumors.
(Source: Qi Cha Cha)
With the support of capital, Duojin's lala has made full use of this advantage in seizing the market, whether it is subsidies or advertising. On April 19 this year, in the price war of freight in the same city, Lalala announced the official launch of the "La la welfare month", and the total reward of this activity reached 500 million yuan. From September 13 to 30, Lalala joined hands with SAIC-GM-Wuling and Dongpeng Special Drink to launch the "2021 Golden Autumn La Cargo Festival". Lala will invest a total of 300 million yuan in subsidies at both drivers and users to stimulate both supply and demand, and reserve abundant capacity.
In terms of advertising, Lalala has been strengthening the public perception of "pulling goods = bulara". In the Internet media accurate push, in the hundreds of city elevators repeated playback of highly recognizable content.
In terms of profit model, unlike the commission system adopted by most of the same-city freight platforms, Lalala currently mainly adopts a membership system, that is, drivers need to pay different levels of membership fees every month. If you do not open a membership, the platform will draw 15% commission per order. According to professional opinions, the membership system is more stable and more secure than the commission system.
More different from Yunniao Technology is the closed-loop strategy of Lalala, in early May 2021, Lalala began to start the car-making project, accumulating logistics assets and stable transportation capacity to achieve the closed loop of the logistics chain and the "digital intelligence" of the car. As of May 2021, the business scope of Lala has covered 363 Chinese mainland cities, with an average of 620,000 monthly active drivers and 8 million monthly active users, which has rushed to the forefront of freight transportation in the same city.
(The picture shows Cheng Wei, CEO of Didi Chuxing)
"Didn't hit Didi, hit a freight lala to work", I don't know whether it is the helpless ridicule of the user's difficulty in taking a taxi, or the intentional action of the goods lala to open the popularity. Can Didi, who is now "pulling people", shake the status of lala in the "pulling goods" industry?
Didi's current business, which has been established for 8 years, has covered many fields such as online ride-hailing, ride-hailing, bicycles, driving, automatic driving, and finance, but under the epidemic, Didi urgently needs to open up a new growth curve. The supply and demand matching platform, as The old bank of Didi, has also been moved to the same city freight business.
On April 13, 2020, Beijing Xiao orange Technology Co., Ltd. established a wholly-owned subsidiary, Tianjin Kuaiju Anyun Freight Co., Ltd., the legal representative of the company is Zhao Hui, general manager of Didi's driving business department, and the actual controller is Cheng Wei, CEO of Didi Chuxing, with a shareholding ratio of 49.19%. On June 16, 2020, Didi Freight announced the selection of Chengdu and Hangzhou as the first batch of trial operation cities, and on June 23, Didi officially entered the same city freight, focusing on freight services such as freight transportation and moving.
On January 26 this year, Didi Freight completed a round of financing of up to US$1.5 billion, with investors such as Temasek, CITIC Industry Fund and IDG Capital, of which Didi Chuxing invested US$300 million. With the help of Didi's brand effect and stable capital chain, Didi's orders exceeded 10,000 on the first day after Didi Freight was launched in Chengdu and Hangzhou. More than three months after going online, didi Freight's daily order volume exceeded the 100,000 mark.
In terms of the strategy of seizing the driver and user markets, Didi Freight has adopted didi's consistent method of burning money subsidies in the online ride-hailing market. Drivers only need a deposit of 500 yuan to register Didi Freight, and advertise 0 membership fees, and only 10% of each single draw.
In any case, backed by Didi's traffic, algorithm, management and many other advantages, didi freight although it entered the market late, but has initially gained a foothold, and in the future, Didi freight is very likely to be listed independently.
(The picture shows Yao Jinbo, the founder of Fast Dog Taxi)
The predecessor of Fast Dog Taxi is 58 Express under the banner of 58 Tongcheng. 58.com is an Internet model door-to-door service brand built by 58.com for 300 million US dollars, while 58.com operates as the core business of 58.000, aiming to establish the fastest and most affordable same-city freight service in the country.
As an old man of same-city freight, in September 2014, the 58 Express app was officially launched, focusing on urban short-distance freight. In August 2017, 58 Express merged with gogovan, a short-haul freight service provider in overseas markets, to consolidate its leading position in short-haul freight services. In August 2018, 58 Express announced that it had changed its name to "Fast Dog Taxi" to provide short-distance goods delivery and trading services. As of April 2021, Fast Dog Taxi has 4.5 million registered drivers on the platform, covering 24.8 million registered shippers in 5 countries and regions and more than 340 cities.
At present, Fast Dog Taxi has completed 5 rounds of financing, and on July 16, 2018, 58 Express completed a round of financing of 250 million US dollars, led by Huaxin Investment, and co-invested by Cainiao, Sino-Russian Fund, Hongrun Capital, Qianhai Fund of Funds and parent company Dajia Group. On July 13, 2021, Fast Dog Taxi announced that it had obtained a round of nearly $100 million in financing from BOCOM International.
In terms of profit model, drivers need to pay a deposit of 500 yuan to enter the fast dog taxi, and the platform membership model is divided into two types: grabbing orders and dispatching orders. In the dispatch mode, the platform will extract 15% of the driver's commission. However, the commission system obviously does not have an advantage under the fierce and turbulent market competition and the near-monopoly market share of the giants. From 2018 to April 2021, the total net loss of Fast Dog Taxi exceeded 2.1 billion yuan. Different from the preconceptions of Lala, seizing the market, and different from the late catch-up of Didi Freight, the fast dog taxi seems a bit embarrassing.
Although it was preemptively entered, under the shadow of the cargo lala, the development momentum of fast dog taxi did not speed up. According to the fast dog taxi prospectus, according to the total transaction volume in 2020, the five major market practitioners account for about 67.5% of the total market share, of which 54.7% are lala and 5.5% are fast dog taxi.
Difficult to survive the fast dog taxi will now face more rising stars, more and more logistics companies into the same city freight, once the loss of capital attention, in the new wave of price war, fast dog taxi will face greater difficulties.
(Chairman and CEO of Manbang Group)
On November 27, 2017, Jiangsu Manyun Software Technology Co., Ltd. (Yunman) and Guiyang Truck Gang Technology Co., Ltd. (Truck Gang) announced a strategic merger to establish Manbang Group to create a road freight trading platform to provide information docking for car owners and cargo owners. At present, Zhang Hui, the founder of Yunmanman, serves as the chairman and CEO of Manbang Group.
So far, Manbang has completed 13 rounds of financing, and on April 24, 2018, Manbang Group announced the completion of the first round of financing after the merger, obtaining a series e financing amount of 1.9 billion US dollars from Sequoia, Tencent and other companies, with a valuation of 6.5 billion US dollars. On November 24, 2020, Manbang completed a $1.7 billion financing. On the evening of June 22, 2021, Manbang Group landed on the New York Stock Exchange, with a market value of more than $23 billion according to the closing price of the day.
As the Didi of the freight industry, by the end of 2020, Manbang Group's business covers more than 300 major cities across the country, covering more than 100,000 lines, and is known as the infrastructure and main artery of China's trunk line transportation capacity.
In June 2020, Manbang Group, through its subsidiary Tianjin Manyun Software 2020, announced that it would enter the same city freight technology co., LTD. to acquire a 35% stake in Guangzhou HuitouChe Information Technology Co., Ltd. (Provincial HuitouChe Company). By August, Manbang had acquired all the shares of the provincial return car.
By November 24, 2020, Manbang Group announced the completion of a new round of financing of about US$1.7 billion, and officially entered the same-city freight market with the brand of "Yunman". SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia, Hillhouse and Tencent all participated in the financing.
With the help of comprehensive advantages, Manbang completed the reserve of transportation capacity and created a freight network covering the whole country. According to the second quarter financial report released by Manbang Group in August this year, in terms of user scale and single volume, the number of fulfilled orders in the second quarter of 2021 was 36 million, an increase of 87.9% year-on-year, the owner of the MAU reached 1.53 million, an increase of 40.3% year-on-year, the revenue in the second quarter was 1.12 billion yuan, an increase of more than double the year-on-year, and the total transaction volume reached 74 billion yuan, an increase of 57.8% year-on-year.
At present, Manbang Group is still in a period of rapid growth, and the network effect of the platform is still gradually strengthening. In fact, not only the trunk logistics enterprises are entering the same city distribution, the same city distribution enterprises are also laying out the long-distance truck business, for example, in May this year, lala basically completed the logistics network layout of the cross-city business. In the context of continuous expansion, it seems that everyone's goal is the same: to further expand the business scope and transportation capacity network, and become a platform enterprise covering various forms of transportation such as trunk lines and terminals in the field of road freight.
(Author: Man Zhi)