The 2.0 version of Everbright’s new economic strategy to understand
文 | 刘半晌
This is a morning in early November, and we started this interview with Ai Wei in his new office on the 11th floor of Kailuan Building. At the moment, it is only half past ten, and it is said that Ai has already seen a wave of visitors and ended an internal meeting. Accurate to half an hour of the schedule is already his everyday state – Ai Wei is obviously more busy than he saw a year ago.
It may not be easy to introduce this business rookie. More people started to understand Ai Wei from the identity of “the head of Everbright Holding New Economic Fund”. But in addition to the spotlight, he joined Everbright Holdings in 2008. At the age of 25, he founded and operated China’s largest real estate fund as a core founder: Guangda Anshi, with a management scale of over 100 billion. In 2015, when the little-known “comprehensive war” came to an end, Ai Wei began to move to the new economic field that the group rarely hunted, and opened up more than 70 investments with swiftness. Most of these projects Later, it was known to everyone: iQiyi, Mei Tuan Comments, Shang Tang Technology, Wish, Daily Excellent, Netease Cloud Music, Xiaopeng Automobile, etc. More practical data indicators are: Within three years, the capital management scale of Everbright Holding New Economic Fund reached 30 billion yuan, and the investment has reached nearly 20 billion yuan. So far, the cash distribution to investors has reached 6 billion, and the average rate of return of the projects has been refunded. Close to 40%.
Greater changes have also quietly occurred. At this moment, if I only regard Ai Wei and his new economic team as an investment force with an industrial background, it is already an outdated definition – in fact, it can be traced back to three years ago, from which they still have no name. The investment of the intelligent hardware company began, and Ai Wei’s identity has added another layer: the CEO of a startup company.
This company is called Tess Union – according to its self-definition – this will be an ecological platform that originates from the intelligent Internet of Things. After Ai Wei took the helm, Tess from a company with a valuation of only $10 million, ran all the way to become a unicorn (valued at more than 1 billion US dollars), including IDG Capital, Jingdong, and Keda News. The investment support of institutions such as Fei, CITIC Industrial Capital, Shangtang Technology, Wanda, etc., has so far attracted more than 8,400 projects across the country, and three vertical scenarios have achieved annual income of 1 billion. Not long ago, in August 2019, Tess announced the completion of the C1 round of financing, amounting to 2 billion yuan. There is no doubt that this is already a hot star company in the AIOT field.
Today, Ai is only 36 years old – looking at the entire business world, this is still a figure that represents youth. But obviously, he wants to run faster. So after the first US dollar fund announced the fundraising, but more than a year later, they once again announced to the public: lightThe second phase of the big holding new economy, the US dollar fund has started, and will continue to cooperate with the former important partner Investcorp. Investcorp is a world-renowned alternative investment company. Since its inception in 1982, Investcorp has invested in 175 companies including Gucci, Tiffany & Co, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Everbright is the only technology partner in the Chinese market to date. In the future, Everbright and Investcorp will jointly set up an investment committee and send employees to each other to complete the investment.
It is important to emphasize that the second phase of the US dollar fund is not just a simple continuation. Starting from this, Everbright’s new economic team completed an important self-iteration: they will gradually give up the full and full-track investment, and turn to Teslink as the starting point, focusing on the technology-enabled track. According to a fashionable statement, this will be a “integrated investment between industry and finance”. Ai Wei emphasized that the investment of “Production and Integration” is the current strategy of the Light Control Group. In the fields of aircraft leasing, pension, real estate, etc., they have formed an ecological picture of “a platform company + upstream and downstream industrial chain layout”. Tes United will be their aggregation point in the new economy.
The following will be an excerpt from the interview with Ai Wei. Here, we talked about his expectations for the new fund, the historical position of the company, and his own identity across investors and entrepreneurs.
Talk about the new fund: Focus on the field of technology empowerment
: Let’s talk about your new moves first: The second US dollar fund has already started. This is only a year away from the first fund. In the fund industry, this can be said to be a rare speed. What is the logical starting point?
Ai Wei: The first phase of the fund is close to 500 million US dollars. So far, it has almost finished. It should be said that our strategy is a high turnover logic, which may be related to our previous background: starting from real estate funds, managing more than 10 billion scale, the high turnover of assets and funds is a habitual lineage.
: Compared with the previous RMB 20 billion fund and the first US dollar fund, what will happen to the new fund?
Ai Wei: There is no change in the general direction, or focus on the new economy. But compared to the previous segmentation, we will be more focused in the future.
Frankly, our investment was all-track before, and there is a certain opportunistic component in it. In the future, we hope to focus on the technology-enabled track, including: IoT, AR/VR, big data, cloud technology. Investment opportunities brought about by the iteration of underlying technologies such as blockchains.
: That is to say, the four main investment lines you have proposed before, including consumption and textEntertainment, etc., companies in these areas will gradually fade in your investment list?
Ai Wei: This is also related to the change of the whole venture capital trend, and the opportunities in these areas are also in decline. But from a more proactive perspective, we are now focusing on cultivating the intelligent IoT ecosystem platform “Tes United”. Some investments will be carried out around its upstream and downstream – not that every investment must be related to it or There is a partnership, but it will serve as an important reference to help us make investment decisions.
: Objectively speaking, 2015, when you start a new economic investment, can’t be regarded as the golden age of TMT or mobile tide. How would you judge the investment in the past four years?
Ai Wei: In the past four years, our team has raised a total of 30 billion yuan of funds and invested nearly 20 billion yuan. There are a number of star cases, such as iQiyi, Meituan Review, Shangtang Technology, Wish, Daily Fresh, Xiaopeng Automobile. Up to now, from the overall point of view, the allocation of cash to investors is nearly 6 billion yuan, and the average return rate of exit projects is nearly 40%.
: But especially in the past two years, the primary market is in a bad situation. How do you achieve a quick exit?
Ai: This may be related to the operating strategies of different funds.
Most of the funds — especially VCs — have a logic of investing for ten years, and then one or two super projects come out to make a lot of money. But from our perspective, we are more inclined to quickly return investors. It’s like a multiple-choice question: one is to let you invest 1 million, and the next 10 years to give you 10 million, but the other option is 3 years to give you 3 million. The numbers are not necessarily accurate, but logically, we prefer the latter.
A lot of projects, we don’t have to wait for the secondary market, and may be retired in the primary market in the second-hand way.
: Is it your first goal?
Ai: It may not be accurate to say so. Some projects will be cultivated for a long time, or even by hand: For example, Tesley is just strategically speaking – or from our background, we have an advantage in running a fund quickly. When we raised the first US dollar fund, we only closed it in half a year. The first RMB fund was closed for 3 months. In terms of investment, we are also in a position to fight against war and fight against war.
: How can I have the ability to be “faster”?
Ai Wei: Everbright Holdings has more than ten years of resources and experience in private equity investment, and it has continuously brought returns to investors. Therefore, the capital of reserves and the trust of investors are an important foundation.
A more important point may come from our own capacity building. Me and my team