The transformation and rebirth of AB Station: Enlightenment behind the accelerating commercialization process

As the two oldest platforms, Acfun, which grew up in Beijing, and bilibili, which is rooted in Shanghai, have always been the most important indicators for observing the secondary industry. So in the past year, what ups and downs and changes have Station A and Station B experienced? What enlightenment does their trajectory bring to us?

Original title: Transformation and rebirth of AB Station of the Secondary Venture Capital Map According to statistics, the total investment and financing of the domestic secondary industry has doubled in the past year, with 77 public financing cases, with a total capital of approximately 2.5 billion yuan.

Among them, platforms are the secondary segment with the largest number of financing. A total of 17 secondary platform companies completed financing in 2016, with a total financing amount of approximately 1.184 billion yuan, accounting for 49% of the total industry, almost half of the country. This includes Station A, which completed two rounds of financing in 2016.

As the two oldest platforms, Acfun, which grew up in Beijing, and bilibili, which is rooted in Shanghai, have always been the most important indicators for observing the secondary industry. So in the past year, what ups and downs and changes have Station A and Station B experienced? What enlightenment does their trajectory bring to us?

Bilibili: The commercialization process is accelerating and exploring diversification of monetization models In 2016, the bilibili bullet screen website (Station B), which has become the first platform for secondary affairs in China, did not disclose a new round of financing, but it is exploring commercialization and realizing diversification of monetization models. Action frequently on the road.

For a long time, website b, which has avoided commercialization for fear of arousing user disgust, has created an image to users that is based on interests and hobbies and has not yet made a profit. However, this situation changed subtly in 2016.

Representative events in the commercialization process of Station B in 2016 include: splitting the travel sub-brand of the Beijing branch of bilibiliyoo for independent financing: On May 20, bilibili announced that the travel sub-brand of the original Beijing branch of bilibiliyoo would be split into an independent company. The new company will be renamed "Galaxy Roaming Guide" and will conduct independent financing. Bilibili will continue to support the development of the new company as a shareholder.

Fu Jingnan, former head of bilibili's tourism business department, will serve as CEO of the new company; offline BML activities broke even for the first time: On July 23 and 24, bilibili held a two-day offline performance event Bilibili Macro Link (referred to as BML), this is also the first time that BML has achieved breakeven in its four sessions; opening an advertising area: After the revision in August, an advertising area was added. The content mainly includes creative advertisements originally scattered in various districts and uploaded spontaneously by users, triggering the outside world's imagination about the B station's advertising model; implementing a paid "big member" system: On October 10, Station B tried the membership payment system. However, due to controversy caused by strategic issues, Station B subsequently made adjustments on how to obtain the qualifications and rights of" major members"; it was named Shanghai Men's Basketball Team: On October 27, at the ceremony to kick off the 2016 - 17 CBA league journey, the Shanghai Men's Basketball Team officially announced that Beili would become the team's new title sponsor. The new team's full name was" Shanghai Oriental Beili Beili Sharks".

This was the most high-profile marketing activity of Station B in 2016; it was the first time in the seven years since its establishment that it held a resource promotion meeting for brands and 4A companies: At the end of 2016, Station B held a 2017 resource promotion meeting in Beijing and Shanghai to attract investment from 4A companies and brands. This was also the first time Station B held such a promotion meeting.

The known financing situation of Station B includes: in January 2013, Station B completed Series A financing, with IDG investing 40 million yuan; in January 2014, IDG led the investment of Series B financing, with an amount of 180 million yuan; In August 2015, Palm Technology invested 12.2272 million yuan; In November 2015, Tencent invested more than 200 million yuan. With the involvement of multiple capitals, Station B will inevitably hand over an answer sheet on how to realize it.

In addition to e-commerce community, drama contracting, paid film and television and other businesses, Station B's main source of income is game intermodal transport. There are mainly three models: intermodal games, domestic agency distribution of Japanese games, and homemade IP games. In addition, it is the exploration of advertising business.

Currently, there are more than 100 million active users and more than 1 million active UP users on Site B. Among them, users aged 0 to 17 are the absolute mainstream of Site B users, followed by users aged 18 to 24, and users over 25 add up to less than 10%. Among college students and middle school students in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, more than 50% of Station B users.

Thanks to the mainstreaming of secondary culture, these huge user traffic, mainly pan-secondary people, has found a good way to monetize in the past year. Coupled with the fact that the post-95s generation has become the new main force of consumption and is better at voicing, Station B has attracted the attention of industries other than the secondary industry with these absolutely young users.

These changes allowed Station B to hold a resource promotion meeting for brands and 4A companies for the first time in 2016. On the one hand, from the perspective of Station B, Station B, which has more than 100 million active users, mainly young people born in the 1995s and 2000s, has the confidence to attract investment and is also ready to attract investment.

As a video website, the uniqueness of Station B is that due to the characteristics of its user group, it cannot do simple and crude advertising and placement like video websites such as iQiyi and Youku, and therefore cannot replicate the payment model explored by these video websites. At the same time, we must be careful to avoid high-profile commercialization causing secondary users 'rejection.

On the other hand, from a market perspective, the post-95s generation is gradually growing into the main force of the consumer market, and brands have not yet been able to keep up with the changes in the young market. Station B is represented by using the secondary yuan as a breakthrough to attract a large number of young users. Traffic portals are beginning to be favored.

From non-mainstream to main force, from marginalization to becoming the target of capital wrestling, the development of Station B represents the epitome of the changes in the secondary industry-the company's brand value and the value of the secondary industry as a cultural product are increasingly recognized. In addition to accepting external investment, in 2016, Station B also made three investments in the secondary industry.

Among them, MissEva is a second-dimensional sound community that produces and accommodates second-dimensional and pan-secondary sound content such as audio comics, music, radio dramas, daily catchings, book listening, radio stations, and game reviews. It is a sub-segment of the content of Station B; Mi Man Media, formerly known as the well-known domestic original ancient music group Mo Mingqi Miao, is an important content section of Station B; Wind Under the Wings has produced a two-dimensional animation of the comic book "The Things About That Rabbit That Year", which is highly recognized by users of Station B. After receiving investment from Station B, the two sides will carry out more in-depth cooperation in terms of content, such as planning the movie "The Things About That Rabbit That Year".

Acfun: Getting rid of the turmoil in management and accelerating financing to establish its second position in the industry. In the past 2016, A has achieved two major events: reshaping management and completing three rounds of financing.

In 2016, Station A brought a temporary stability to the continued turbulent management. For a long time, Station A has been trapped in the vicious circle of "financing-management turbulence-refinancing-further turbulence", and 2016 is no exception. In January 2016, Station A received a 60 million yuan investment from SoftBank's China A + round, and the management adjusted again. This time, Sun Min was promoted from CEO to President and appointed Mo Ran as CEO. Mo Ran later invited CEO Wang Wei (ptw), who came to Half-Dimension, as the director of product management technology. The original leadership and middle level were once again purged. It was not until July 2016 that Liu Yanyan, the former editor-in-chief of Station A, took over as CEO in place of Mo Ran, and the board of directors of Station A appointed Li Bin, vice president and chief strategy officer of Aofei Entertainment, as chairman that Station A temporarily withdrew from the crisis of management turmoil. Since then, the management of Station A has stabilized to this day.

Station A, which has regained its management, has also begun to adjust the originally decentralized equity structure. The shareholding structure statement released in November 2016 shows that Cai Dongqing, chairman of Aofei Entertainment, is the largest shareholder of Station A, accounting for 54.77%, and Chinese Online and Tudou Culture are the second and third largest shareholders. The top ten shareholders hold 100% of the shares, and many small and medium shareholders who were originally scattered were eliminated in this round of integration.

A stood in the past year of 2016 and made a radical three rounds of financing attempts. In January 2016, Station A received US$60 million in Series A + financing from Softbank China; in August 2016, Huace Film and Television announced a strategic investment of US$50 million in Station A. However, according to reliable information obtained by Digital Entertainment DreamWorks, the investment did not finally take place; In November 2016, Station A joined hands with Chinese Online to complete a Series B financing of RMB 250 million. So far, the post-investment valuation of Station A in this round has reached 1.85 billion yuan. It is precisely because of its efficient financing rate that Station A is able to stabilize its own cash flow, while at the same time shaking off its competitors, and firmly ranks second in the barrage website industry.

However, behind this temporary stability there are still hidden worries about the resumption of unrest. If we compare the shareholder composition of Station A and Station B, the outside world will find that among the investors in Station A, except Softbank China, whether it is Aofei represented by Cai Dongqing, Youku Tudou, which has taken a stake through litigation, or Huace Film and Television, which is not yet among shareholders, or Chinghua Online, which has just been promoted to the second shareholder this time, are not purely financial investors.

In contrast, in the shareholder list of Station B, except for Tencent and Palm Technology, which have war investment intentions, Chinese Culture, H Capital, and IDG Capital are all pure financial investors. The coordination of relations among shareholders of the war investment group is now another worry about the future stability of Station A. Which "mother-in-law" Station A will follow, who will eat meat, who will drink soup, and who will chew bones, and the establishment of all order means the possibility of turmoil. Historically, almost every financing of Station A has been accompanied by violent personnel fluctuations. From this perspective, the root causes of the turmoil in Station A have not been completely eradicated.

Fortunately, several shareholders of Station A have already cooperated with each other in business before. For example, on August 24, 2016, Chinese Online and Aofei agreed to jointly build at least two IP integrated development projects every year; then, Chinese Online agreed with Huace Film and Television on August 31 to enjoy the priority to select at least two SIPs for integrated development every year under the same conditions. This may be because relying on business cooperation to bind interests can enable the interests of major strategic shareholders to reach an agreement to a certain extent.

In addition, the commercial development of Station A has stagnated, and its weak blood-making capacity has become a shortcoming hindering its development. The announcement shows that Station A's operating income in 2015 was only 3.63 million yuan, with a net loss of 113 million yuan; Station A's revenue in the first nine months of 2016 was approximately 710,000 yuan, with a net loss of 146 million yuan. In addition to worrying annual income and huge losses, as of September 30, 2016, Station A's total liabilities reached 148 million yuan and net assets were-112 million yuan. Compared with Station B, which has established an advertising and game intermodal system and has begun to try paying members, Station A will urgently need to solve the problem of its own commercialization launch in the next year.

Editor: yvette