Text : Xiao Yanru/ Source: Lujiazui magazine WeChat
Since last year, the new media strategy of Shanghai United Media Group has attracted widespread concern in both media circle and investment circle, apart from the setup of three projects including “Shanghai Observation”, “The Paper”, and “Interface”, Shanghai United Media Group also made deployment in new media investment.
In August last year, 825 New Media Industry Fund, a 1.2 billion yuan fund jointly initiated by Shanghai United Media Group, Oriza Fund of Fund and Meridian Capital, was founded; this fund is mainly used for investment of Internet new media.
Alex Wang, Investment Director of Meridian Capital China, told journalist of “Lujiazui” that since its inception, 825 Fund has made investment in nearly 30 projects, in terms of investment direction, they continually value culture new media contents and the way how Internet reforms traditional industries.
Investment in cultural content+ Internet
Lujiazui: How to interpret the investment directions of 825 Fund?
Alex Wang: We continually treasure cultural new media contents, Internet trend of traditional industry and consumption upgrading.
Internet has become one of the main presentation means and channels for all kinds of industries, nowadays we cannot mention Internet individually, instead it is preferred to talk about each industry’s decentralization and efficiency improvement with help from Internet and mobile Internet, and even generating brand new business models and segmented markets.
We also value cultural contents, nowadays communication methods vary greatly, now we have web communication such as We Media, but the needs for content production remain unchanged, it still must maintain high standard, the audience are still those previous traditional audience, only that changes in communication method may lead to changes in some business models.
Lujiazui: Specifically which sectors?
Alex Wang: In the cultural media industry, including Internet We Media, TV mobile phone interaction, that is how to link up TV program to mobile phone users, plus reading, music, TV & movie, and performance, all of them are potential targets for us.
Meridian Capital is an investment organization, therefore we more tend to funnel investment to companies, which may be content companies or channel operation companies in the above-mentioned directions.
Lujiazui: What kinds of companies have received your investment?
Alex Wang: For instance, O2O companies that help users deal with automobile after service market, by diverting traffic flow on mobile phones to offline automobile service shops; companies engaged in WeChat third party services; companies engaged in TV program content production, such as Houghton Street Media; also smart POS machine companies that reform traditional POS machines; we have also invested in real-estate related Internet companies, which can improve efficiency in property search and purchase for the public.
Lujiazui: How to select investment targets?
Alex Wang: Different industries have different criteria. Take our investment target Houghton Street Media as an example, firstly, we value companies engaged in content production, especially good content production teams, regardless of movies, TV or mobile phone, content production is always valuable. Houghton Street Media has a complete set of very well-developed content creation and production system, back then when we were chatting with its founders, we felt very surprised at this system, for it is able to make content production relatively standardized, which is overlooked by other domestic production teams.
(TV program “Emergency Room” produced by Houghton Street Media recently was aired on Dragon TV)
Preferring We Media with mechanism
Lujiazui: You have also made investment in We Media?
Alex Wang: Yes. Judging from the current trend, the communication of media is decentralizing, and presents many-to-many scattered status. In 2013 Meridian Capital invested in one project, the biggest We Media alliance WeMedia on WeChat, the alliance of those who have grasped core We Media content production, what we value is mainly content. This content has its own We Media operation, meanwhile it also organized those WeChat big names, and adopted the form of alliance to provide services for We Media people including promotion.
Lujiazui: Do you value We Media by media people?
Alex Wang: Many good We Media are produced by people from traditional media, for instance, there is one case that failed to receive our investment, it is called “One Posting” on WeChat, each day it releases one video footage, in less than one year its fans topped 1 million, every posting attracted over 100000 reading times, its video contents may be related to life, for instance restaurants or some interesting shops, or something about art and literature, like introducing museums or an artisan, and this is produced by a media industry insider.
Lujiazui: So why did it fail to receive your investment?
Alex Wang: We first look at opportunities related to platforms, for single We Media we are still relatively cautious.
Lujiazui: There are so many We Media out there, what contents will become popular?
Alex Wang: Different people have different tastes to satisfy, it’s really difficult to let everyone like you, and chances are it increasingly depends on what kind of population groups are your target, I recommend those engaged in We Media now not to be too all-inclusive, you must develop your own style, and can grab a group of your own fans, in other words returning customers, who will stay on.
Lujiazui: Do you look at traditional media?
Alex Wang: We are concerned with the transition of traditional media.
Lujiazui: Apart from alliance, what other business modes of We media attracts you?
Alex Wang: We Media itself is only a kind of media, but media’s cash conversion ability is limited, nowadays some We Media are developing derivative businesses with other industries, for instance We Media transferring to tourism, or We Media transferring to retail, service and so on, therefore we will direct our attention to opportunities related to big traditional industries or consumer industry.
