21 Billion single men and women “ Online dating ”, prop up 130 Billion IPO

Its listing is only Tencent “ Meta universe ” A corner of ？

author ： Miku

edit ： Jiulu

“ Social metauniverse ” The first one is IPO 了 .

i Black horse learned , In recent days, , Social networking platform Soul Officially submit the prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange , It plans to be listed in Hong Kong , BofA Securities 、 CICC acts as co sponsor . As early as 2021 year 5 month ,Soul As to the SEC Submitted F-1 Prospectus , To be launched on NASDAQ , But the same year 6 month 23 Japan ,Soul Press the pause button , This move has also been Soul The support of Tencent, the largest shareholder .

Soul Behind the , It's a bit. 37 Year old female CEO—— Zhang Lu .2007 year , After graduating from Sun Yat sen University, she came to Shanghai , Worked hard in Shanghai for many years ,2016 year , After discovering the pain point that strangers lack in spiritual communication , Zhang Lu resigned and embarked on the road of entrepreneurship , Same year ,Soul The official was born , Become a dark horse of strangers' social track .

Compared with the social orientation of strangers , What's more, it's worth mentioning ,Soul The largest shareholder of —— tencent . Under the “ Social metauniverse ” The banner Soul, Tencent is in “ Meta universe ” One of the layouts on , And for Tencent , It's just that “ Meta universe ” The tip of the iceberg .6 month 27 Japan ,“SPARK 2022” Tencent game conference , Ma Xiaoyi, senior vice president of Tencent, said , Tencent has recently established an expanded reality of integrating software and hardware （XR） Line of business , stay “ March ” On the matter of the yuan universe , Tencent is also constantly taking the lead .

01

37 Year old female entrepreneur

Lean on 3000 More than 10000 monthly live users IPO

Soul The birth of , It's just an idea of Zhang Lu accidentally .

2007 year , Zhang Lu graduated from Sun Yat sen University majoring in English Literature , Come to Shanghai , Enter Nielsen Market Research , Responsible for data mining and analysis , Also participated in some consumer behavior research projects .

here we are 2009 year , Zhang Lu joined the European management consulting company Innext, establish Innext China consulting team , Participated in many market projects , And gradually grow into Innext General manager of China .

Two working experiences have laid a solid foundation for Zhang Lu's future entrepreneurship , But really get involved in the stranger social industry , It's a whim from Zhang Lu .

“ I remember what I wanted to say at that time , But you can't send it on wechat , Then I sent it to QQ Space , Set to be visible only by yourself . At that moment, it seemed that none of them was like Soul Such products .” In an interview , Zhang Lu mentioned her original intention of starting a business .

Doing Soul After the idea of such a product , Although not from the Internet , Zhang Lu did it right away .

At first , After Zhang Lu drew the prototype of the product by himself , Find a part-time production UI, Then she found an outsourcing company to do demo.

“ Outsourcing companies always ask something I don't understand , What kind of front and back end , I just listen to Google Baidu .” Zhang Lu once recalled the problems encountered at that time , After the outsourcing company makes products , There are also various problems, such as unable to send messages bug, Basically useless . But Zhang Lu found , Users would rather take screenshots and send pictures than transfer to wechat .

“ I'm surprised , I think everyone really needs this product .” therefore ,2016 year , Zhang Lu resigned , Officially embarked on the road of entrepreneurship .

Build a team , Made a close 10 Months , To 2016 year 11 month Soul Of “ The first edition ” shelves , Zhang Lu said , The reason why this product is named “Soul”, It is also hoped that users can find soul mates on the platform ,Soul Our ultimate vision is “ Let there be no lonely person in the world ”.

Although the product still exists bug, But in more than half a year , Zhang Lu led the team to continue iteration and operation , The novel strangers' voice social way plus the algorithm mechanism based on interest matching ,Soul It was soon welcomed by young people .

picture source ：Soul Official website

2018 year ,Soul The monthly number of active users exceeded 1000 ten thousand , Become the most popular social networking for young people App One of .2019 year ,Soul It once boarded App Top of the social list , Ranked at the top of the social networking list for a long time . here we are 2020 end of the year ,Soul The cumulative number of registered users has exceeded 1 Billion .

2021 year , With the boom of the meta universe , Zhang Lu proposed “ Social metauniverse ” The concept of , Same year 5 month , Relying on Super 3000 Million monthly active users ,Soul towards SEC（ Securities and Exchange Commission ） Submitted F-1 Prospectus , To be launched on NASDAQ . Even though 1 After a month , For a variety of reasons ,Soul On the way to the market, press the pause button （ This move also won Soul The support of Tencent, the largest shareholder ）, But it doesn't mean Soul This is the end of the listing of .

Now , With Soul Submit the prospectus at the Hong Kong stock exchange again , If successful ,37 Year old Zhang Lu will also welcome her first IPO, Tencent's layout in the meta universe is also further .

02

Three year net loss 17.568 One hundred million yuan ,

Soul Our future lies in “ Meta universe ”？

Z For generations Soul The way to go public .

The prospectus shows ,Soul It is a virtual social platform for the young generation in China , It breaks geographical and social restrictions , Let people establish and maintain a wide range of relationships through interests and virtual identities .Soul app Let different people use virtual identity in virtual space and through different powerful 、 Open and playful interactive ways to socialize and connect , And own digital assets .

at present ,Soul Adopt a business model based on value-added services , But revenue mainly depends on value-added services , Accounting for 90% above .Soul Our value-added services include virtual props 、 Member subscription and other businesses , Users can purchase “ Flight rights package ” Get virtual props and rights . among Soul stay 2019 year 、2020 Years and 2021 The annual average monthly income of each paying user is 21.9 element 、43.5 Yuan and 60.5 element , The average monthly paying users are 1700 ten thousand people .

You can see from the prospectus ,2019 year 、2020 year 、2021 year ,Soul The operating revenues of are about 7070.7 Ten thousand yuan 、4.98 One hundred million yuan 、12.81 One hundred million yuan ,2020 The annual income is 2019 On the basis of... Years 6 times ,2021 The annual revenue increased by 157.3%, The corresponding gross profit margins are 48.6%、79.9%、85.2%.

While the revenue and gross profit are constantly improving , Didn't let Soul Break even , On the contrary, the loss expanded year-on-year .2019-2021 year ,Soul Net losses are 3.53 One hundred million yuan 、5.79 One hundred million yuan 、13.24 One hundred million yuan , The adjusted net losses were 2.923 One hundred million yuan 、4.658 Million dollars 9.987 One hundred million yuan .

among , The main reason for the year-on-year expansion of net loss is , In order to expand the scale of users ,Soul The marketing cost of has increased year by year , During the reporting period ,Soul The marketing expenses are 2.04 One hundred million yuan 、6.21 Million dollars 15.13 One hundred million yuan , The proportion of total income is respectively 289.1%、124.8% and 118.1%.

How to make ends meet , Become Soul The problem to be solved . besides ,Soul There are still hidden risks in the platform ecosystem , fraud 、 Pornographic content and other problems occur frequently ,Soul It is also pointed out in the prospectus , In addition to enabling algorithm driven content censorship , It also improves the detection ability with the help of intelligent fraud screening function and manual monitoring .

in addition , Here's the thing to watch , Along the way ,Soul Also cannot leave a crowd VC/PE Support for .

Disclosure of information ,Soul Completed 4 Round of funding ：2016 year 12 month ,Soul Complete the investment by puju 、 Angel round financing invested by Jianming capital and other institutions ;2017 year 6 month , Complete Chenxing capital 、MFund Invested by magic capital A Round of funding ;2018 year 1 month , Complete the A+ Round of funding ; And in the 2021 year 6 month 18 Japan ,Soul Complete Tencent investment 、 Boyu capital 、 MIHA Youji Janus Henderson Equity financing , Financing amount reaches 1.69 Billion dollars .

According to the prospectus , Tencent is Soul First largest shareholder , The shareholding ratio is 49.9%, Owning a company 25.7% Right to vote ;Soul Founder Zhang Lu holds shares 32%, Have 65% Right to vote . Besides , At the previous issue price , add IPO Private placement and other quotas participated by former MIHA tour ,Soul The valuation of is about 20 Billion dollars （ About us 130 RMB ）.

Soul Rush to IPO The way , Full of difficulties and frustrations . Zhang Lu's promotion journey from social intercourse with strangers to social metauniverse , There is still a long way to go .

03

Soul Of “ Social metauniverse ”,

Just Tencent “ Meta universe ” A corner of ？

Compared with Soul Of “ Social metauniverse ”, What's more remarkable ,Soul The largest shareholder behind —— tencent .

Under the “ Social metauniverse ” The banner Soul, It is undoubtedly possible to become Tencent in “ Meta universe ” One of the layouts on , But for Tencent , This is just its “ Meta universe ” The tip of the iceberg .

Although Tencent rarely claims to bet in public “ Meta universe ”, But this does not mean that Tencent has no action .

This year, 1 month , Tencent plans to acquire game phone company Black Shark technology to enter VR Hardware message fermentation , However, the two sides have never reached an agreement on the acquisition , Black Shark technology CEO Luo Yuzhou also told the media “（ Tencent's acquisition of black shark technology is ） No matter ”.

This year, 2 month , There is media coverage , Tencent will launch a new business XR（ Expanding reality ,Extended Reality）, And open the running water recruitment inside （ Internal cross department transfer ）;6 month 27 Japan , stay “SPARK 2022” Tencent game conference , Ma Xiaoyi, senior vice president of Tencent, said , Tencent has established the expanded reality of integrating software and hardware （XR） Line of business , Hope to seize the future 4-5 Opportunities within the year , In the software 、 Content 、 System 、 Tools SDK、 Hardware and other links are actively tried , To build an industry benchmark VR Products and experiences , This is the first official confirmation .

Being robbed by the high premium of ByteDance Pico、 After the rumor that the acquisition of black shark failed ,XR Establishment of business line , Interpreted by many media as Tencent layout meta universe , The end is an important signal of hardware .

In the first wave earlier VR/AR wave , Tencent keeps moving . Like investing “ The first strand of the meta universe ”Roblox, And become Roblox Exclusive agent in China ; meanwhile , Tencent also owns European and American game giants Epic Games40% Shares of ,Epic Games The unreal series game engine of is just VR/AR One of the most important infrastructures in the field .

Besides, in the past few years , Tencent has also made a lot of layout based on virtual reality integration ：

2019 year 4 month , Tencent launched similar pokemon go Of AR game “ Let's catch the demons ”;

Same year 5 month , Tencent and foreign game platforms Roblox Building strategic partnerships , The two sides announced the establishment of a joint venture , adopt “ game + education ” In the form of , To cultivate the next generation of programming 、 Scientific and technological talents and content creators ;

2020 year 12 month , Ma Huateng in Tencent's annual special issue 《 Three views 》 It is proposed that “ Quanzhou Internet ” Concept ;

2021 year 9 month , Tencent shares in domestic established brands VR Game developer Weimo era , Layout VR Game studio ;

2021 year 11 month , Tencent shares focus on AR/AR British manufacturer of metacosmic tactile simulation technology Ultraleap.

……

Data shows , At present, Tencent has patents related to metauniverse 24000 Remainder , All over the world 126 A country / region , The content mainly involves virtual scenes 、 The image processing 、 Artificial intelligence （AI）、 The server 、 Blockchain 、 Data processing, etc , Among them, invention patents account for as much as 99.74%; From the perspective of patents held , Tencent has a core technology patent , It has been quoted as many times as 110 Time , The number of references is 50 The number of times and more patents is not less than 12 Pieces of .

This is about the meta universe “ war ” It is still unfolding orderly in friction and conflict , It's not yet time for a real explosion , There is no winner yet , There are no losers yet , But as Ma Huateng published in Tencent 《 Three views 》 Mentioned in ：

“ With VR New technologies such as 、 New hardware and software driven in a variety of different scenarios , I believe another shuffle is about to begin . Just like the transformation of the mobile Internet , Those who can't get on the boat will gradually fall behind .”