There is no hope of listing, and the realization hope of Red Kids investors can only be pinned on the overall sale of the company. Once known as 20 1 1 to realize IPO, Red Kids, a mother-infant e-commerce, is rumored to be seeking M&A opportunities everywhere. The object of the negotiation is related to Suning.cn, which has sprung up in the e-commerce industry.
On July 2012 16, Red Kids was exposed to serious losses, and several major investors were trapped. The previous three investors, Northern Lights, NEA and Triumph Venture Capital, were all trapped. On July 18, Suning.cn denied that it would buy Red Kids.
In this regard, the person in charge of the Suning.cn market said that he had not heard of the acquisition of Red Kids. Xu Peixin, the current CEO of Red Kids, denied all kinds of speculations, and revealed that Red Kids will complete a new round of financing of 20 million yuan within this month, and the financing targets are the three VCS previously invested.
However, there are still indications that Red Kids, a once popular e-commerce, is becoming an e-commerce sample that completely sticks to VC and fully reflects the difference between investment entrepreneurs and transformation failures.
In the face of the rumor that Suning.cn's integration of mother-infant e-commerce is unfavorable and Red Kids will lay off employees 15%, Li Bin, executive vice president of Suning.cn, responded for the first time in a joint promotion activity between e-commerce and Red Kids on1October 20th.
Li Bin said: "Red Kids will accelerate its expansion in 20 13, and its guaranteed sales revenue target will almost double to 3 billion yuan, so the number of Suning Red Kids team will be expanded from the current 1000 to 3,000." On June 6, 2008, 10, Li Yang, general manager of Red Kids Internet Technology Co., Ltd., returned to work after the National Day holiday. Jin Peng, a representative of KPCB, one of the investors, came to his office and told him bluntly that the board of directors decided to let him leave the company he founded immediately.
Without warning. Li Yang was very surprised. In 2007, Red Kids' sales revenue reached 400 million yuan, and in March 2008, it crossed the breakeven line and became the most popular e-commerce company in that year. He asked another business partner, Xu Peixin, chairman and CEO of the company, and the answer was: "This is the decision of the board of directors." Next, Li Yang couldn't contact any major shareholder because "some people didn't answer the phone and some people said they had gone abroad".
Li Yang and his wife Wang Shuang left together, and they started a business together. Xu Peixin explained that the board of directors thought that husband and wife could not work in the company at the same time and did not want to be separated, so they both left. But in the eyes of all parties, this is tantamount to a coup.
In the eyes of the industry, Hong Haier was mainly due to the excessive involvement of investors, which led to the chaos in Hong Haier. It is reported that Xu Peixin, another founder, chairman and CEO of Red Kids, retired to the second line, and the executives elected by venture capitalists were responsible for the daily operations of Red Kids. On the afternoon of September 25th, 20 12, Suning Appliance officially announced the acquisition of Red Kids, a mother-infant e-commerce brand, for US$ 66 million. Sun Weimin, vice chairman of Suning Company, said at the meeting that in 20 15 years, we will strive to realize the income of maternal and child categories 10 billion in Suning.cn. Sun Weimin said that Suning bought Red Kids, an e-commerce company that has been engaged in the maternal and child industry in China for eight years, for $66 million. Red Kids became the first vertical e-commerce company in Suning.cn to be acquired, and the brand and domain name of Red Kids will be preserved after the merger.
Sun Weimin said that in the process of Suning's acquisition of Red Kids, Red Kids' operation team is the most important, because Red Kids has very rich experience in mother-infant operation. In the future, Suning will integrate e-commerce through various means to achieve online and offline integration.
Regarding the significance of Suning's acquisition of Red Kids, Sun Weimin said that the acquisition will accelerate the maturity of the e-commerce industry and accelerate the team building of Suning. It is reported that there are currently 4,000 employees in Suning.cn, hoping to lead the rational development of the e-commerce industry through the merger and integration of industries, which also marks that the focus of online retail competition has turned to an open platform.
Regarding the strategy after the merger of the two parties, Sun Weimin said, first, after the integration of Suning and Red Kids, Red Kids will retain the existing team and status to operate from the perspective of future development; Second, the maternal and child category of Suning.com and the website of Red Kids will be further integrated, especially the maternal and child category of Suning.com will be operated by Red Kids as a channel; Third, Red Kids' logistics department will be incorporated into Suning system, and Suning will further enrich Red Kids' personnel and improve Red Kids' market share and status; Fourth, accelerate the integration of the maternal and infant market through the brand of Red Kids, and expand the development of Red Kids through offline and telemarketing channels.
Sun Weimin, vice chairman of Suning Appliance, also said that Suning's acquisition of Red Kids is also to lead the industry integration and rational development, so that the e-commerce industry can finally return to the essence of retail. "After the acquisition is completed, the brand and operation of Red Kids will remain relatively independent, but it will be integrated with Suning's existing network in terms of logistics and distribution."
Li Bin, executive vice president of Suning.cn, said that Suning.cn has rich experience in the operation of household appliances 3C, but lacks experience in the operation of non-electrical appliances, and the operation of Red Kids on mothers and babies can provide experience for Suning.cn. In addition, the early development of Red Kids is limited by insufficient funds, and Suning.cn can place financial and human support; Operationally, Suning.cn launched the mother-infant channel, while retaining the brand and domain name of Red Kids, integrating the vertical operation market on the team, optimizing the supply chain management, and enjoying the traffic and marketing resources.
According to industry insiders, there are two reasons for Suning's acquisition of Red Kids: First, it is in line with Suning.cn's open platform strategy and can quickly obtain various resources for expanding categories; Second, the seller's long-term insistence on fruitless and bleeding is really cheap to buy Red Kids. From its own point of view, Suning needs a professional e-commerce team to expand maternal and child products; Second, Red Kids have a good brand influence in maternal and child e-commerce. Third, Red Kids has a certain scale foundation, and Suning can use the scale of Red Kids to enter e-commerce. Suning's acquisition of Red Kids will not have a direct impact on other e-commerce platforms in the short term, but there are two signs: first, the focus of online retail competition will shift to an open platform, and second, the B2C M&A market will become more active.
As for the new changes that Red Kids' experience in the field of maternal and child e-commerce can bring to Suning, the insiders believe that it is mainly the contribution of suppliers and users' resources, and the operating experience is difficult to be adopted and used for reference by Suning.cn in the short term. This acquisition may give Red Kids a chance to reverse the loss situation, but it won't change much. Red Kids is just a part of Suning's strategic framework, which plays a role in making up for it, but the demand is changed for commercial reasons.
As a well-known B2C e-commerce company for maternal and child products, Red Kids started from the catalogue sales of maternal and child products, gradually developed into comprehensive department stores such as cosmetics, daily necessities and clothing, and finally transformed into an e-commerce company in the later period. In the past few years, Red Kids has completed several rounds of financing, and the financing amount is huge. But at 20 1 1, due to the fierce price war, the income was seriously affected. Moreover, negative news keeps coming, the founder leaves his post, the capital side controls the company, the diversification strategy fails, and the losses are serious.
Exploring the Decline of Red Kids: It is disastrous to give up the venture capital struggle of mother-infant base camp. On March 1 March, 2003, the dispute over the equity of the founder of Red Kids attracted the attention of the outside world: Wang Shuang, one of the founders, sued other founders, claiming that the equity was transferred without his knowledge. However, whether this dispute will affect Suning's acquisition of Red Kids, lawyers believe that Suning has risks in the future.
The dispute began with the equity dispute of several founders of Red Kids. After Red Kids was founded by Li Yang, Wang Shuang, Yang Tao and Xu Peixin, everyone except Xu Peixin left the front line of Red Kids Company. According to the equity transfer agreement, Wang Shuang transferred his shares to Jiang Fengyun and Yang Tao on June 23, 2009.
Today, Wang Shuang said that he didn't know about the transfer, thought that the signature on the agreement was forged, and he didn't sign it himself, and began to file a lawsuit against the existing founder.
13 March 1 day, the founder of Red Kids sued the company for equity issues. Suning, the acquirer of Red Kids, responded to Netease Technology that the company's acquisition behavior was handled in strict accordance with laws and regulations and has been approved by relevant departments. The company will pay attention to the mentioned litigation events.