The former DingTalk CEO has joined the game with capital, and cross-border e-commerce is still being pursued by capital amid the account blocking trend!

In recent years, capital has been continuously investing in the cross-border e-commerce industry. The Amazon account suspension incident that lasted for several months has put cross-border e-commerce at the forefront of public opinion. Many industry insiders are worried that this will affect capital's confidence in cross-border e-commerce.

In fact, during the period when Amazon sellers were constantly blocked, investors did not stop their pursuit of cross-border e-commerce.

And the more this happens, the more we can see what kind of projects capital prefers.

Former Alibaba DingTalk CEO brings capital to start a cross-border e-commerce company

In early July, the editor saw a piece of news: the former DingTalk CEO Chen Hang (nicknamed "Wu Zhao") will resign to start a cross-border e-commerce company, which has now received strategic financing from Yuanjing Capital.

According to Qichacha data, Chen Hang is the legal representative of Two Hydrogen One Oxygen (Hangzhou) Digital Technology Co., Ltd. ("Two Hydrogen One Oxygen"), which was established on June 28. At the same time, he also established Two Hydrogen One Oxygen (Shenzhen) Digital Technology Co., Ltd. in Shenzhen, a hotbed of cross-border e-commerce, on July 27.

(Photo source: Qichacha)

Not only Chen Hang, data shows that the shareholders of Hydrogen and Oxygen also have a great connection with DingTalk. They include: Ren Qing, former vice president of DingTalk, Gan Cong, former head of DingTalk's marketing department, and Zhu Hong, former chief architect and CTO of DingTalk. They hold 12.5%, 11.25%, and 7.5% of the shares in Hangzhou Hydrogen and Oxygen respectively.

In mid-July, Zhu Hong posted a circle of friends in Hangzhou Lakeside Garden, the birthplace of Alibaba's entrepreneurship: The place where the dream of entering the palace three times began, the first two times were successful projects... Entrepreneurship can only be broken by speed, and development is the hard truth! We are a digital technology company. Friends with entrepreneurial aspirations and like-minded friends, please take a look. We are going to recruit 100 technical positions this year, for all kinds of positions.

It is reported that last year, Alibaba announced that it would upgrade DingTalk to the DingTalk Business Unit and fully integrate it with Alibaba Cloud to ensure the full implementation of the "Cloud-DingTalk Integration" strategy. Subsequently, Chen Hang left DingTalk and became the assistant to Alibaba Chairman and CEO Zhang Yong.

According to the news, the relevant person in charge of Alibaba responded to Chen Hang's resignation and entrepreneurship: Wu Zhao is still in Alibaba and has not resigned. The so-called entrepreneurship is actually a new internal mechanism that Alibaba Group is trying to encourage diversified innovation, which is an attempt under the new mechanism.

Regardless of whether Chen Hang resigns or not, the fact that he and the original DingTalk core team chose cross-border e-commerce as the project for their next start is enough to prove that this track is gradually gaining popularity.

Independent sites are popular: Zhang Xiaopei, the original CTO of Chehaoduo, started a business and raised another $100 million

Under Amazon’s strong ban, many sellers regard independent sites as a safe haven. In fact, not only sellers in the industry, but also investors are very fond of independent site projects.

Last year, an independent website project received an angel round investment of approximately US$30 million without being named, with a post-investment valuation of US$150 million, attracting widespread attention from both inside and outside the industry.

This project was founded by Zhang Xiaopei, the former co-founder and CTO of Chehaoduo Group, after he resigned. Recently, there was new financing news for this project.

It is reported that the new financing amount for this project is US$100 million, and the main investors include Today Capital, Sequoia, IDG, Shanxing Capital, 5Y Capital, etc.

It is worth mentioning that the name of this project was also exposed with the news of the new round of financing, and it is called "Quanliang Quansu". According to Qichacha data, Quanliang Quansu is a fast fashion export cross-border e-commerce brand, similar to SheIn fast fashion export cross-border e-commerce brand.

(Photo source: Qichacha)

Like Chen Hang, Zhang Xiaopei, the founder of Quanliang Quansu, also has an impressive work experience.

Public information shows that Zhang Xiaopei has served as chief R&D director of Microsoft's online advertising team and global vice president of Hulu, a well-known American online video company .

After that, he joined CreditEase and served as CTO of CreditEase and general manager of the Big Data Innovation Center. On April 1, 2016, he became CTO of Guazi. On March 17, 2019, he became the co-founder of Chehaoduo Group. In May 2020, Zhang Xiaopei resigned from Chehaoduo Group and became a partner of Shanxing Capital.

3C sales are still optimistic: Greenlink receives investment from Hillhouse Capital

As we all know, in the wave of Amazon account bans, 3C sellers are at the center of the storm. Many big sellers have gone bankrupt, and other small and medium-sized sellers have also been affected.

What is surprising is that at this critical moment, there are still 3C products that are selling well and obtaining capital financing.

It is reported that there have been new changes in the shareholder information of Shenzhen Green Link Technology Co., Ltd. recently.

The editor found through the search of Qichacha that on May 6 this year, Greenlink added a new investor, Zhuhai Gaoling Xiheng Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership), and increased investment again on June 11.

Now, Zhuhai Gaoling's newly added shareholding ratio is 5.5556%. Among the shareholders' subscribed capital contributions, Zhuhai Gaoling's investment is about 13.889 million yuan, ranking fourth. (Note: The investment amount has not been disclosed yet, and the shareholders' subscribed capital contributions do not represent investment funds.)

(Photo source: Qichacha)

In Shenzhen's cross-border circle, there should be few people who have not heard of the name of UGREEN.

Founded in 2009, UGREEN has developed in a comprehensive and balanced manner. Its products include nine categories: electronic storage, Bluetooth headsets, mobile phone accessories, smart charging, Apple accessories, computer accessories, car accessories, audio and video accessories, and home life accessories.

In addition to a comprehensive product line, UGREEN also has a complete online and offline sales channel. In terms of online channels, the "UGREEN" brand is active on well-known platforms such as Amazon, AliExpress, eBay, and Wish.

As the domestic market has become relatively mature, in 2014 UGREEN formulated a strategy for brand expansion overseas and chose Amazon as its partner. At the end of 2014, it entered Amazon's "Global Store".

According to global store opening news in January last year, in 6 years, UGREEN's annual sales increased by 300%, its products were marketed in more than 200 countries and regions at home and abroad, and its overseas business team expanded from 10 to 80 people.

Industry insiders said that with UGREEN receiving investment from Hillhouse Capital, its IPO will be launched soon.

In conclusion:

"Cross-border e-commerce has gradually become an important growth pole of China's foreign trade." On July 23, at the press conference of the 2021 China Cross-border E-commerce Trade Fair (Autumn) in Guangzhou, Miao Huawei, Director of the International Exhibition Department of the Foreign Trade Development Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce of China, introduced this.

Relevant data show that in the first half of this year, the import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce in mainland China was 886.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.6%.

It can be seen that although Amazon has been banned, cross-border e-commerce remains a new growth point for China's foreign trade in the future, and market investment and financing data confirms this.

As one seller said, capital is not stupid. Why would it rush to invest in something that has no prospects?

Amazon’s recent major rectification is, as the Ministry of Commerce previously said, a temporary “inability to adapt to the local environment” and “growing pains”.

However, from this shock, we should also see the focus of capital when choosing projects: First, the project founders who have experience as senior executives of large companies are more likely to be favored; second, independent station projects are gradually being favored by capital; third, capable 3C sellers are still favored.