Recent news related to Meridian Capital China
On June 3, the Meridian Capital Annual Investor Conference 2016 opened in Lingshan, Wuxi. More than 200 Meridian Capital’s investors, partners and representatives of beneficiary enterprises gathered together to review Meridian Capital’s investment deployment in the past year, and unfolded a brainstorm of wisdom between “veteran player” and “new force”.
Since its inception in 2008, Meridian Capital consistently practiced the investment philosophy of “dedication”, in recent years it made extensive investment deployment in mobile Internet and content culture industry, total fund management size topped RMB 5 billion yuan, with investment covering over 100 Internet culture new media enterprises. In 2015, Meridian Capital reaped grand prizes consecutively in VC industry, including Top 20 Startup Investment Organization 2015, Top 10 China’s Best Investment Organizations in Culture Industry 2015 honors.
Since 2015, Meridian Capital continued to probe premium projects in its focused industries. In the preceding month of May, Meridian Capital joined hands with Shanghai United Media Group, Guochuang Oriza Fund of Fund and Gopher Asset Management to jointly initiate “825 New Media Industrial Fund Phase II” with an initial size of RMB 2 billion yuan, whose investment mainly centers on “Internet+”, new media, information technology and related fields.
Heroes of Meridian Capital Put In An Appearance: Bucking The Trend In The “Winter of Capital”
At the Investor Conference on June 3, four partners of Meridian Capital showed up and delivered address. David Shong, Founding Managing Partner of Meridian Capital, welcomed all attending investors and beneficiary enterprises. In the past one year, in the face of turbulent capital market, Meridian Capital relied on outstanding strategic vision and dedication spirit, it not only made investment deployment in a series of promising enterprises, but also acquired remarkable performance in follow-up round and exit aspects.
Tracy Ji, Founding Managing Partner of Meridian Capital China, said: “In the past one year, we reaped big success despite busy work schedule. Although people around us all said the winter of capital has arrived, we saw the absolute majority of Meridian Capital’s beneficiary enterprises were in very healthy condition, so we kept our confidence. Of course, the fact that Meridian Capital is able to withstand pressure and move forward, and follow the tempo of its schedule to continue to forge ahead, is inseparable from every investor’s support.”
Since 2015, Meridian Capital’s investment territory is focused on consumption upgrading, culture and entertainment, corporate level service, and Internet banking. Gaonan Zhang, Partner of Meridian Capital responsible for technology, pointed out that the past year marks a year of bumper harvest for Meridian Capital, and this year investment opportunities based on technology and VR products will emerge in abundance, Meridian Capital will keep monitoring this field, and remain alert to look for new investment opportunities at any given time. Alex Wang, Partner of Meridian Capital, also expressed his confidence, although the market is in turbulence, with Meridian Capital’s pioneering deployment, currently the entire investment ecology and trend are healthy.
Legend of Meridian Capital Heroes: The Power of Meridian Capital in the Eyes of Partners
At this time’s investor annual conference, Meridian Capital’s investors, partners, and representatives of beneficiary enterprises gathered together, and retraced the investment pace of Meridian Capital in 2015. At the Investor Conference, Qiu Xin, Party Secretary and President of Shanghai United Media Group, reviewed the remarkable performance of invested projects of the “825 New Media Fund Phase I” in the past year, and acknowledged the efforts and investment philosophy of the Meridian Capital Team: “Shanghai United Media Group and Meridian Capital will soon witness the third year in their cooperation. We feel glad to see 60 projects, and get acquainted with 60 entrepreneurs with both passion and execution ability through Meridian Capital Team’s efforts. They each have their own unique talent. Nonetheless, what impressed me most is their ‘fighting’ spirit dedicated to ambitious vision, down-to-earth practice, constant polishing of products, and continual innovation. In the words of Ethan Qian, founder of Wuli Project, it means to adopt a kind of nearly ‘obsession with cleanness’ attitude to bring the team to reward users and the society with the best products.”
Against the background of slowing economic growth, and crash of the stock market in the middle of the year, in the past year Meridian Capital’s LP still gave maximum support to Meridian Capital, which stems from LP’s confidence toward Meridian Capital Team. Wang Jipeng, Partner of Oriza Fund of Fund, summarized three changes in Meridian Capital investment ecology in the recent two years: Firstly, Culture and entertainment industry experienced draught of investment, Meridian Capital Team demonstrated visionary deployment at content end and IP end; Secondly, Meridian Capital Mid-level Team displayed healthy development momentum, the entire team displayed obvious upward development trend; thirdly, Meridian Capital’s differentiated positioning and competition characterized by “Dominance of RMB investment + Effective Communication with Competent Departments + Cooperation with Strategic Organizations”, can help enterprise acquire steady development. Wang Jipeng said: “Meridian Capital’s investment eco deployment is very healthy, and this is exactly the core cluster for long-term cooperation that Oriza Fund of Fund is looking for.”
In addition to deployment in investment ecology, Meridian Capital continually strengthened post-investment management for beneficiary enterprises, and offered more value-added services and support from dimensions such as finance, docking with capital market, PR and recruitment. As a “factory of leading TV program and new media”, Houghton Media received much attention in the content startup field through creative R&D and production of programs represented by “The Story in ER” in recent years, it was reported that it would be listed on the New Third Board in the near future. Wang Tong, Director and Chief Content Officer of Houghton Media, pointed out that from company inception till today, Meridian Capital performed its role as investment team and gave the company powerful support: “Meridian Capital on the one hand often communicated with us about problems in our development process, on the other hand it also provided chances to communicate with other related companies, so that we know more start-up partners, and try content cooperation between each other.”
Wang Tong said: “Meridian Capital’s team is professional, bold, and forward-looking, it began investment in Internet emerging industry very early, when they were giving us investment, very few people in China were interested in content field, and now it is already at the center of the draught.” So, what achievements has Meridian Capital made in the past one year? The following is a performance score sheet of Meridian Capital in the past year.
Score Sheet of Meridian Capital in 2016: “Big Opportunities Exist When There Is Wind”
“If the whole market is peaceful, there is no big opportunity for us, on the contrary, when there is any fluctuation, or a little breeze, some ups and downs, we will have bigger opportunities, and this requires us to think clearly before the wind arrives.” On the day of the Investor Conference, Tracy Ji shared Meridian Capital’s investment and deployment in 2015 with attending investors and partners, “Wind is no problem, the key is whether or not preparations have been made properly when the wind starts”.
Receiver of multiple special honors
2015, Meridian Capital reaped grand prizes consecutively in VC industry, including
Zero2IPO Group——
Top 20 Startup Investment Organization 2015
Top 30 Foreign Invested Startup Investment Organization 2015
Top 20 Investment Organization in China’s Internet/ Mobile Internet Sector 2015
Top 10 Investors in China’s Internet Banking Sector 2015
ChinaVenture Group——
TOP10 Investment Organization in China’s Best Culture Industry 2015
TOP10 China’s Best Investment Organization for Startup 2015
Improve Investment Territory And Deployment
In 2015, Meridian Capital continued to probe premium projects in its focused industries, meanwhile it looked for investment opportunities in the “existing market”, continually improved investment ecology. From the beginning of 2015 till the end of 2015, Meridian Capital invested a total of 40 projects (wherein 5 existing projects received additional investment), whose total investment amount was about 700 million yuan; from early 2016 till the end of May 2016, it invested 11 projects, whose total investment amount topped 300 million yuan.
In the aspect of investment distribution, since 2015, Meridian Capital probed premium projects in the following sectors respectively:
Consumption upgrading sector (28): E.g. www.sweetiesalad.com dedicated to health, www.wedrive.com.cn dedicated to automobile, kangfuzhushou.cn in the medical field, and www.kaistart.com in the crowd funding field;
Culture and entertainment sector (28): E.g. www.budejie.com engaged in entertainment community, mobile info App Wuli, www.kidstone.cn engaged in animation whole industrial chain;
Internet banking field (14): E.g. car loan lender www.fengtouwang.com, www.miniu98.com;
Corporate level service (14): E.g. WeChat service www.weimob.com, social insurance enterprise www.joyowo.com, digital marketing operator www.qianka.com.
By May 2016, 29 projects of Meridian Capital have confirmed or completed follow-up round financing, projects including www.hotbody.cn, www.weimob,com, and www.jiemian.com have all received follow-up round financing, showing powerful development momentum. On the New Third Board, enterprises invested by Meridian Capital resumed eye-catching performance: 12 projects are making preparations for listing on the New Third Board; 7 projects are changing equity structure; www.weimob,com and www.1hlx.com have finished change of equity structure; www.chineseall.com recorded over 10 times of return on book value after public listing.
The Rank: Chronicle of Events of Meridian Capital in 2016
Apart from outstanding performance of beneficiary enterprises, in the past one year, Meridian Capital also finished the following major tasks:
Firstly, “825 Fund Phase II” was set up in 2016, with a target size of 2.5 billion yuan;
Secondly, Wuli customer end went online, as an info reading new media product catering to the young generation, jointly created by Shanghai United Media Group, www.people.com.cn, Meridian Capital 825 Fund and the project team, Wuli is expected to become the mainstream entrance of info reading for the generation born in the 1990’s in the future;
Thirdly, it will develop majority holding program for a batch of strategic key projects, e.g. wwwzhuishushenqi.com, www.budejie.com, www.kingreader.com and so on, which will be subsequently focused on as core enterprises for industry integration.
