Early investment institutions began from the "panic" in 2020, relying heavily on the way of meeting entrepreneurs offline, and stagnated in the sudden attack of the epidemic; People's economic activities have slowed down in an all-round way, and the development and financing plans of the invested companies have been disrupted; Seeing that the capital winter, which began a few years ago, is about to usher in the coldest final chapter, the most "impossible" spring is coming:
Whether it is the medical industry directly stimulated by the epidemic-in the first eight months of 2020, the average single financing of the medical industry reached 654.38+0.8 billion yuan, the highest in the past five years; It is still a surviving new consumer brand. In the first half of the year, at least seven early brands, such as Milk Snow Tea, Gaozi Pot and Wang Baobao, raised hundreds of millions of RMB. After Ma Xiao Zhixing received $400 million in financing from Toyota in February, another round of financing exceeding $300 million was completed on October 27th, 65438/kloc-0. Waymo, a self-driving company owned by Google, also raised more than $3 billion in the first half of this year, and their financing is constantly refreshing the financing record in this field.
There are signs that more early-stage technology startups have received more investment than in the past two years. Behind this spring is the gathering of capital for head institutions and head projects, and the practitioners' re-examination of themselves.
Early investors are trying their best to seize this spring in order to find a better position for themselves when the new cycle comes.
The financing data of the third-party institutions paint a clear picture:
On the one hand, the overall investment activity of VC/PE has dropped significantly. Some research reports show that the ratio of institutional investors to institutional investors in the first half of the year dropped sharply to two thousandths. According to CVSource investment data, since the beginning of this year, the overall monthly investment scale has been less than 20 19, and the number of investment cases has almost halved.
However, on the other hand, the average value of single investment this year is increasing year-on-year. In August, the average value of a single investment reached $26,865,438+$00,000, a year-on-year increase of 52%. Among them, the dollar-level transaction is 3 1 billion, and the dollar-level transaction is 3 billion.
According to the fundraising statistics of China Investment Research Institute, in the first half of 2020, the top five institutions in fundraising scale were Tencent Investment, Sequoia China, Shenzhen Venture Capital, Yida Capital, Gaoying Capital and Jingwei China, with an investment amount of 60-30.
In other words, most of the opportunities are left in the hands of powerful institutions.
A person who works for the above-mentioned head VC said to Pinwan, "For the head VC, in fact, everyone's bullets are not less or even more. Some insiders revealed to Pinwan that the investment quota and the number of transactions of white and other institutions, which have always been good at investing in hot projects, have exceeded this year.
"We joked that after the epidemic passed, people said retaliatory consumption, and now we see retaliatory investment." Yan Qun, founding partner of Lightspeed China Venture Capital Fund, said at a small forum attended by Pinwan in September. "Everyone is robbing the project. The previous valuation was low, and now it is not lower than before. "
"Everyone thinks that the epidemic has not completely passed, but it is actually quite lively in our investment community. It is still very powerful for everyone to fight in the past. " Jixun Foo, managing partner of ggv capital, said at the same event.
Even Allen Zhu, the managing partner of Jinshajiang Venture Capital, once famous for its large subsidies, said that investment projects are no longer so easy to hold high and fight high. "Today, investors are asking for entrepreneurs. Take my money. "
"Head funds become more competitive because of better returns, while small and medium-sized funds will be more passive in project competition if they do not have special differentiated characteristics, abilities and advantages".
Corresponding to the specific work, it is not just "passive".
The cutting-edge capital investor who has been established for six years has changed his head portrait into a professional photo of a suit and tie in order to improve the pass rate of adding founders to WeChat. On social media, they complained that "a good investment manager will use up three pairs of leather shoes in a year", "Now the founder's WeChat has been opened eight times" and "the head project is getting more and more expensive".
The head fund is not short of money, and it is easier to melt money into the head project. Under various active or passive factors, a certain subdivision of the track has entered a large amount of hot money, and the financing of small and medium-sized entrepreneurial projects in the growth period generally has a particularly favorable environment, and various funds flock to it. The valuation of entrepreneurial projects is generally overvalued.
Under normal circumstances, the regular allocation of a dollar fund is several hundred million, and millions are invested in each case. After the resources are gathered in the head investment institutions, investment becomes a game that must have sufficient ammunition to play.
In the long run, the ecology of interaction between head funds and head projects has been formed, and the head effect of VC/PE market is getting worse. "The good will grow faster, and the bad will never get enough money to grow."
Large funds can gradually invest in the whole industrial chain, and listed companies are included in the business scope in the morning, middle and evening, and even special funds are available. And small capital, small business, has become my brother, we must find ways to find a narrow survival market among giants, praying not to be targeted by giants too early, but also to guard against competitors. When start-ups were invited by many investment institutions, they should try their best to bring them more resources other than funds.
"This has become a back-and-forth game market, and it is too difficult for investors to do it." An investor who is not in the "head" complained.
Difficult to do, still have to do it. Otherwise, no one can sit still and watch the news that the valuation of individual projects has soared.
The most direct thing is to actively adjust the orbit.
Now people are talking about "hard" industries such as enterprise services, medicine, chips and semiconductors, which makes Yuan very embarrassed. "My background, habits and previous projects are long-term extensions, so I can't see these industries. There are still boundaries between industries. "
Since the epidemic, online education in the fields of medical and health care, IT and informatization, education and training has risen against the trend in terms of transaction scale, while the data in other fields are not very good-looking, and the cultural industry, which is not optimistic about capital, is struggling.
There are not a few investors who face the track dilemma like Xiao Ye at the beginning.
Cao Yiqian went out alone on 20 16. Some of the companies he invested in went public, and with a good professional resume, he successfully raised the first RMB fund. Now that the first period is over half, he is ready to start raising the second period. He dare not say that he is a senior investor in the cultural field.
"Nobody pays the bill." He said that although the projects invested in the first phase look good on the books, after all, there is no real money to return, and the external fund-raising environment is very poor. "You can only die."
"Are we wrong? There is nothing wrong. People are fine, they work hard and have good resources, but things are out of control, "Yuan said.
Yolanda is examining the new consumption along the familiar cultural field: "What I saw before belongs to consumption, but it belongs to spiritual consumption with cultural attributes. Today's new generation of consumer brands are not simply selling things, but have their own IP and personal settings, which are essentially culture, similar to those we have traditionally seen. "
The investment trajectory has changed. In order to make "LP Dad" pay the bill, Yuan came up with some "grand but logical" reasons-people in the new era, changes in China's consumption structure, GDP and industrial structure, and he couldn't help laughing. "As a part of the environment, we can only adapt to the environment and can't change it, so everyone is bent."
VC plumbing FA prophet, some investors simply changed their "jobs" and switched to FA.
In the past two years, many friends in the investment circle complained to Sun Tingting that they were anxiously looking for new investment angles, waiting for new industry projects, and even changing their strategies and tactics to "push themselves". In an unfriendly environment, some practitioners face painful career choices, continue to be investors, or change careers.
Sun Tingting is an investor who changed his investment direction earlier. At the end of 15, the investment environment was still at a high point, a large number of emerging RMB funds were established, and the types of investors became more and more diverse. At that time, Sun Tingting had already voted for 10, because she had just given birth to a baby and switched to FA by mistake.
Looking back now, she thinks this is a "more efficient and faster way"-she invested 80 companies in 10, but reached this figure in the third year of FA. "Industry resources are generated based on transactions, but the resources and accumulation of core companies, as well as the understanding and learning of the company, have not been discounted."
Another person who has also worked in the venture capital industry for 10 years is also considering changing tracks. During the three-month gap after leaving his job, he received a unanimous suggestion from four GP-level partners: switch to FA. This proposal is even detailed to "make a portfolio with a valuation of $654.38+0-500 million and then sell it to the strategic side".
In the case that the VC/PE market is not very good, many investors have a lot of situations before and after the B round, and their books have increased a little. However, due to factors such as stage or industry, they are faced with the problem of no exit channel, and such cases are often valuable to strategic investors. At this time, the demand for FA is increasing.
This year's epidemic makes this rare spring seem sudden, but in fact, the financing cycle determines that these structural changes are inevitable.
Now is a common period of capital cycle conversion. 20 14-20 15, the number of newly established funds surged to more than 10,000, and the subscription scale also rose. According to the cycle of 5-7 years, it is time to raise new funds. At that time, VC 2.0, which was born out of established institutions, has become one of the leading forces in the industry, but not everyone is so lucky. According to "Investment Circle", starting from 20 19, the fundraising time of many funds has been delayed from the past 3-6 months to the present 12- 18 months.
The knockout of VC/PE market has always started with fundraising. When raising the first fund, you can tell the story of the team. When the second fund was raised, the first fund was only about halfway through, so it was difficult to ask for a return. Under the time difference, you can continue to use the concept of story to raise money, but when it comes to the third and fourth funds, you must use the real rate of return to speak.
If the previous grades were not good, the old LP refused to vote, and the new LP was not interested. If it can't raise new funds and invest in new cases, it can only continue to invest, and then survive or die. Therefore, many famous funds established a few years ago are hard to find now, and many small venture capitalists are disappearing.
The above-mentioned head VC vice president described this as "the inevitable process of the market." "The market doesn't need so much capital and VC, and it doesn't need so many entrepreneurial projects." He believes that referring to the quotations given by the Science and Technology Innovation Board and the Growth Enterprise Market, optimists see a historic exit opportunity, which is a great progress in China's capital market, and pessimists will feel that the noise is the loudest now.
"There are too many delusions. The situation in the VC/PE market this year is to pay for some things that were too radical at that time and the resulting bubble. "
The old cycle is coming to an end and the shuffle is complete. In a rare spring, a new cycle opens again. It has many characteristics belonging to this new stage, and people have become more efficient and pragmatic.
Even the US dollar funds that have entered the market for a long time, experienced a long period and are more mature and steady are quietly adjusting and upgrading their investment direction and strategy with the changes in the overall environment. In the past, dollar funds favored platform companies and were highly accepted by Internet companies that burned money to increase users. Now they are much more pragmatic, and tend to choose companies with good revenue and profit growth and clear IPO plans in the future.
When funds prefer to choose grounded companies, entrepreneurs' ideas are more realistic and operational, which actually reflects the maturity of LP behind them-they also have the ability to measure GP standards-which is actually the maturity of VC/PE sources. In this case, LPs will naturally recognize a better collective, excellent GP and entrepreneurial projects can get more money, that is, differentiation will continue to be obvious.
With 65,438+00 years of investment experience and 5 years of FA experience, Sun Tingting has dealt with a large number of investors and entrepreneurs. In terms of docking resources, she believes that both sides are paying more and more attention to efficiency and accuracy. When creating new products, a lot of hot money enters, and investors are very confused. Everyone trusts the halo endorsement of established investment institutions. Now we need more detailed investigation and screening before cooperation.
In the early years, it was no longer feasible to simply and rudely pull the two sides together and introduce each other. From extensive cultivation to intensive cultivation and standardization, the industry needs to have sufficient understanding of people, events, opportunities and competition.
From an analyst to a vice president, Li Huixin, who has several years of entrepreneurial experience, has also witnessed the changes along the way. In the past, BP mainly focused on the background of team composition and future business planning, and many people with soft backgrounds such as product managers also participated. Nowadays, more and more technology and business people are deeply involved in the industry to start businesses.
Li Huixin observed that the total number of entrepreneurs is decreasing. But when it comes to project prospects, she feels that entrepreneurs have generally become "mature". They no longer talk about the misty dream of changing the world with tears, and they no longer insist on being a $654.38 billion company, but "think more rationally", such as dealing with the relationship with giants.
In the early years, whenever Li Huixin advised entrepreneurs to sell their companies, it was easy to produce natural resistance. But now entrepreneurs clearly know that this project may be to sell to giants. He understands that this is a good way for entrepreneurs, core teams and investors.
"More smooth, more real. Everyone wants to make money, just skipping dreams and stories. "
* At the request of the interviewee, this article takes Yuan, Cao Yiqian and Li Huixin as aliases.