In July, Zongteng Group completed the C round of 500 million yuan financing; In August, Anke Innovation landed on the Growth Enterprise Market, and its market value once reached 68 billion. Cross-border e-commerce and capital have never been so close, and even small and medium-sized sellers around them have begun to care about how to find financing.
As one of the earliest domestic investment institutions focusing on cross-border areas, Nut Capital has reached its seventh year. At present, its management fund scale is nearly 654.38 billion, and it has invested in many sellers and service providers in cross-border fields, such as Yeahmobi, Saiwei Network, Zhiyu Technology, Lilysilk, Soufeel, TIJN, JW Pei, Touchdata, Le, Main Island, Erpolo and so on.
As one of the founding partners of Nut Capital, Sun Hongda has rich experience in cross-border investment, and people in Jianghu call him Big Brother. So in his view, what kind of development trend will cross-border e-commerce have in the future, and how does he choose his favorite goal?
We might as well look at this industry from the perspective of an investor, which may bring some inspiration to enterprises seeking financing.
In the last year or two, the argument of singing bad industry dividends has become more and more frequent, and even sellers are in deep crisis. But in Dago's view, at least in the next 3-5 years, the industry will still be in a stage of rapid development.
He believes that China's industrial chain advantages and relatively transparent and dispersed overseas traffic pattern will not change for the time being, while China entrepreneurs' operational ability and efforts still far exceed those of foreign competitors.
So the basic bonus will last for a long time. Now many cross-border e-commerce companies compete with Chinese people and Chinese people in the international market.
In addition, excellent cross-border e-commerce companies in the future will become more and more like technology companies. It is no longer simply relying on primary means such as operation to gain advantages, but the embodiment of comprehensive ability, in which technical ability will account for a large proportion.
Technical ability is mainly reflected in the level of information technology within the enterprise itself, and the proportion of using data for decision-making and execution in daily operations will become larger and larger in the future.
And the style of play is diversified. In recent years, there have been many different ways of playing cross-border e-commerce. However, Big Brother also said that on the whole, there are more opportunities for companies to cut into vertical fields. For example, a direct consumer-oriented brand is more likely to succeed if it focuses on one or two categories and then expands vertically or horizontally.
In addition, more capital will enter this runway in the future, and more cross-border e-commerce will embark on the capital market. This trend has been confirmed at present.
Finally, the industry will tend to be sunny and more and more standardized. The openness of data between various departments, the willingness to go to the capital market, and more industry encouragement and supervision measures by the government will make the entire cross-border e-commerce industry more standardized and require more compliance from sellers or practitioners.
Since most cross-border e-commerce companies used to go it alone and had little access to capital, there were often many doubts when looking for financing.
For example, what points will investment institutions pay more attention to, such as what preparations need to be made for financing, such as at which stage enterprises should raise funds from the outside, such as how investment institutions value themselves, and so on.
Big Brother gave his own answer from the perspective of investors.
First of all, whether to invest in a company depends on whether you can make money for fund investors when you quit after many years. There are many criteria to judge whether you can make money, of which two are the most important. First, the team should have a heart to do valuable things for a long time; Secondly, in this field, it is best to have enough precipitation. If you are a new team, you must have strong learning ability and be focused enough.
Furthermore, if enterprises want to get in touch with capital, they must know themselves and know each other.
The so-called confidant is that enterprises should have a comb on themselves. For example, whether its own shareholding structure is appropriate, whether the business development logic is clear, how the team is equipped, whether what it does has lasting value, and what it is doing with money.
The so-called knowing yourself and yourself means knowing what kind of capital you should look for. The strength and investment style of each kind of capital are different, and the effect on an enterprise is also different. For example, in the relatively late stage of an enterprise, it may be necessary to find a capital that understands the industry and has strong capital ability in the later stage; If it is early, you can find a capital that is deep enough in the industry and has some industry resources, and its capital ability is not necessarily strong.
If there is no one in the team who knows a lot about financing, you can find FA, but only if you sort it out yourself.
It is appropriate to contact capital at any stage of enterprise development. The key is to evaluate yourself, think clearly about the use of money, think clearly about what kind of enterprise you want to be, and think clearly about whether it is necessary for your current team and what you are doing to get in touch with capital.
Finally, in terms of valuation, Big Brother thinks that there is no fixed model formula, and it is more based on whether it can make money for the fund in the future. But there are also relatively simple and rude methods, such as judging how much return the invested enterprise can bring in five years, what level it will grow to, where the upper and lower limits are, and using the value that may be generated in the future to reverse the current valuation.
Of course, large companies and small companies will have different priorities in valuation. Because small companies really don't have much data to look at and face many uncertainties in the future, they pay more attention to the reliability, concentration, learning ability and adjustment ability of the team, while large companies can have more operational data and financial data to refer to, and team management level and cooperative combat ability are also very important.
In addition to the above two points, he also put forward his own views on the following issues.
1. What is the guiding significance of Anke's listing to the industry?
Milestones in the industry represent the recognition of the cross-border e-commerce industry by the capital market. The guiding significance lies in: first, cross-border e-commerce can be listed on A shares; Second, brand precipitation, be a long-term value enterprise, and third, compliance.
2. What impact does the registration system have on the industry?
For capital, one more exit channel will enhance the activity of industrial capital, but it also means more bubbles; For cross-border e-commerce enterprises, they have the opportunity to go public, and with the help of the capital market, they can have more choices and means to help them achieve the next stage, and they have a better chance to become global enterprises.
3. Is independence the future trend?
First, the platform does not conflict with the independent station; Second, the transformation of independent stations is a good attempt, but it should be slow and steady, and cut into the team; Third, we must have input and patience, and we can't simply measure it by ROI; Fourth, plan the future orientation of the independent station.
4. What is the future pattern of cross-border logistics?
Logistics is the core service link of cross-border e-commerce, and timeliness and cost are crucial to the success or failure of enterprises. However, because there are too many logistics links, different special lines have their own advantages in different links, and sellers will not only choose one service provider, so it is difficult to form a monopoly. There may be several head enterprises in the future, and then the gap between the second line and the first line will not be too big. In the future, like all industries, the top 10-20% logistics companies will eat 80% of the market.