Tianya returns to content and is on the right track to raise 66 million yuan to build a pan-entertainment and cultural platform

Recently, Tianya has raised 66 million yuan through non-public targeted stock issuance. Based on content, Tianya is not only about to release the Tianya platform, but also begins to get involved in fields such as Short Video and live broadcasts. Can transformation bring new spring to Tianya?

The former hot fermentation site Tianya Forum has been robbed of its identity by Weibo and has been low-key listed and has suffered losses for several years, but the 18-year-old Tianya has not given up on himself. Recently, Tianya has raised 66 million yuan through non-public targeted stock issuance. Based on content, Tianya is not only about to release the Tianya platform, but also begins to get involved in fields such as Short Video and live broadcasts. Can transformation bring new spring to Tianya?

Returning blood to create vitality Recently

, according to an announcement recently issued by ST Tianya, the company issued 3 million shares of common shares through a non-public targeted offering of shares at a subscription price of 22 yuan/share, raising a total of 66 million yuan. The total number of shares purchased by investors in cash was 3 million shares, of which share capital increased by 3 million yuan and capital reserve increased by 63 million yuan.

Among the 3 million shares issued, Hainan Orange Red subscribed for 1.5 million shares, totaling 33 million yuan; Huaxia Happiness subscribed for 1 million shares, accounting for more than 1% of the shares, involving funds of 22 million yuan;ST Tianya's registered shareholder Xing Ming subscribed for 500,000 shares, totaling 11 million yuan. Among them, Huaxia Happiness had already paid a subscription amount of 22 million yuan to ST Tianya on April 19, 2016. Not only that, Huaxia Happiness participated in the subscription as a parent company this time, which is different from most previous subscription transactions with subsidiaries. situation. Xing Ming, chairman of Tianya, is also the controlling shareholder and actual controller of Hainan Dawei Internet Investment Management Co., Ltd., the company's second largest shareholder. Huaxia Xingfu and Hainan Orange Red are new external investors.

In the announcement, Tianya emphasized that the company is currently in the stage of business transformation. The funds raised are mainly used for the construction of a pan-entertainment and cultural platform and focus on original content mining, IP copyright operations and mobile product research and development. They are also used to upgrade cloud computing Big data platform infrastructure construction and replenishment of working capital to meet the company's daily production and operation needs, alleviate current working capital pressure, and improve profitability and risk resistance capabilities. After the stock issuance was completed, Tianya's business structure remained unchanged.

In fact, this fundraising subscription did not go smoothly. As early as April 7, 2016, ST Tianya announced a relevant stock issuance plan, planning to issue 7 million shares and raise 154 million to 210 million yuan. Subsequently, ST Tianya revised its stock issuance plan twice and finally completed this issuance, but the final fundraising scale was greatly reduced.

In addition, although the deadline for this subscription payment is December 31, 2016, Huaxia Happiness of this batch of funds has completed the transfer of the total subscription price of 22 million to ST Tianya account shortly after the first plan announcement in April last year.

In August 2015, Tianya Community, which had suffered continuous losses, low-key listings of the New Third Board. However, due to the failure to disclose the 2015 semi-annual report in time, the transfer of Tianya Community, which had just been listed on the New Third Board for six days, was suspended. At the end of 2015, Tianya was put on a ST cap by the equity transfer system due to insolvency.

Tianya's losses are not optimistic. In 2013, it lost 31.6133 million yuan, in 2014, it lost 44.6582 million yuan, and in 2015, it lost 19.91 million yuan. In the first half of 2016, the loss was 21.5919 million yuan, the net assets were-44.659 million yuan, and the asset-liability ratio was as high as 101.95%. It was in a state of insolvency, and there was only 1.02 million yuan in cash on the account. On December 18, 2016, ST Tianya issued an announcement announcing the sale of assets to withdraw funds (the sale of tourism business "Tianya Customers"). In addition, Tianya received approximately 106 million yuan from the New Third Board during two stock issuances. Coupled with the funds received this time, it can temporarily relieve Tianya's heavy pressure.

The collapse of established communities.

In March 1999, Tianya, the "Global Chinese Online Community", was born in that era when the Internet was booming. After years of accumulation, it has become synonymous with Internet social networking and community. Among the posts and replies, Tianya has long served as a mainstream platform for fermenting social topics and is known as the "news agency of the Internet of China."

Tianya's prosperous period lasted for seven or eight years. During the Internet bubble of 2000-2001, Tianya successfully survived by controlling costs without soliciting either venture capital or advertising. In the 2004 selection of the Top 100 BBS Community in China, Tianya entered the top three together with Xici Hutong and Netease, ranking first in the overall ranking, and won the "first place with the most investment value." Sina and Sohu also made mergers and acquisitions, but were rejected. 2005-2006 In 2010, IDG, Zero 2 IPO, Lenovo, Google China, and Jiang Nanchun successively invested in Tianya. Tianya created two products, Come Bar and Q & A, and the number of users quickly rose to 5 million. When Xing Ming reviewed Tianya's history early last year, he said that it was a turning point since 2006. The determination to go public prompted Tianya to pursue profits. In 2007, Tianya Community released a number of products, including an advertising system and an enterprise sector similar to the Baidu special area.

In 2009, Tianya had formed a team to try to make games, but ultimately failed. Later, Google withdrew from China, and Tianya's idea of listing in the United States was also shaken. After the official launch of the GEM, Tianya planned to go back to domestic listing, but missed the best period due to delayed negotiations with Google. At the same time, Sina Weibo and Baidu Tieba have launched crazy money-burning circles, attracting a large number of Tianya writers. Upcoming stars such as Douban, Renren, and Kaixin also came to share the food, and Tianya was gradually in a passive position. Today, mobile WeChat and Weibo have become dominant social platforms, and established communities including Tianya, Maopu, Netease, and Xici Hutong have gradually cooled down. Xici Hutong has been sold several times, and the Netease forum has been closed last year. Maopu and Tianya are still wavering.

According to official introduction, Tianya's main products currently include "Tianya Community" on the Web side and "Tianya Community" on the mobile side,"Tianya Daily", etc. In addition to its headquarters in Haikou, the company has established branches in more than ten regions including Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, China, and Silicon Valley in the United States.

ST Tianya said in its 2016 semi-annual report that its business model is transforming from an online advertising marketing business to an Internet transaction sharing platform business. At the same time, it said that the business transformation has achieved initial results: Tianya Community has more than 115 million registered users, with an average daily UV of 13 million, a year-on-year increase of 8%., mobile users account for nearly 60%.

"Tianya has tried N models and tried almost all Internet services (classified information, blogs, Weibo, tourism and agricultural products e-commerce, etc.), but none of them have or are limited by early models and have not been successful. There are the relationship between the headquarters staff and Hainan, the founding team's feelings, and the management team's decision-making issues. Therefore, Tianya is currently in a strange circle, that is, he does not dare to subvert but is eager to innovate." Xing Ming's reflection is determined to put Tianya on the road of having to change himself.

After Content Highland

was listed on the New Third Board, Tianya began to think about the direction of transformation, and then came up with a declaration to transform into community games, community e-commerce, Internet finance and other businesses. However, the input-output ratio in these areas is not high and the results are minimal.

Shen Zheyan, a cultural industry researcher at China Investment Consulting, analyzed that with the decline of community websites, Tianya Community's solution lies in transformation, and it urgently needs to add new profit points to support the company's sustainable development. Although Internet finance and community e-commerce are currently at the forefront, Tianya has no obvious advantages in either aspect. Internet finance competition is fierce, and some Internet giants and banks are fighting each other. Tianya's development is limited, and community e-commerce has higher requirements for logistics., the construction of the logistics system requires a lot of investment.

Finally, Tianya regained his remorse and returned to the content field. On the occasion of his 18th birthday, he announced that he would officially release the self-media product "Tianya". Content has been used as Tianya's tool to attract traffic since its birth. Tianya, who had failed to do a good job in this business before, decided to turn the game around with content.

Countless famous writers were active in Tianya, which was once a treasure place for publishing houses. For example, Ning Caishen's "My Own Swordsman" became famous in Tianya. However, Tianya did not manage this forest well. The highly regarded super IPs such as the "Ghost Blows Out the Lantern" series,"Tomb Robbing Notes", and "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty" series, but the birds originally bred in Tianya Community flew to other homes. It was not until 2015 that Tianya established a wholly-owned subsidiary Hainan Tiandao Reading and Literature Industry Development Co., Ltd., hoping to realize Tianya's original content in the fields of publishing, film and television, games, animation and derivatives.

The importance of content has been repeatedly emphasized by Internet platforms including BAT, and high-quality content is very common in Tianya community, coupled with hundreds of millions of traffic, which strengthens Tianya's confidence in exploring the value of content. Tianya realized that in addition to harvesting IP, he must also speed up his pace in other aspects. Therefore, Tianya will also enter the field of Short Video live broadcasting.

At present, Tianya mobile user traffic accounts for nearly 60%, and there is still room for growth. Live streaming through Tianya and Short Video will greatly trigger the growth of this part of traffic, which is what Tianya hopes to see. Short Video, in particular, have almost become a necessary drainage magic weapon for transformation because they are in the hot season.

"Whether we can attract past active users back to the platform now depends on Tianya's next operating methods." Industry analysts said that it is gratifying that Tianya is finally embarking on the right direction, but the time and resource cost it has consumed over the years is indeed too great. There is also certain pressure to launch Tianya at this time, especially in the face of the current subsidy war. Tianya is under a lot of pressure and needs to introduce excellent content creators, which is not enough to rely on past feelings.

However, Tianya is still optimistic about this,"Now that the platforms are all distributing content, it doesn't matter which one will join the battle. Moreover, Tianya should have more advantages as an original content platform," Tianya personnel replied to reporters.

Editor: Nancy