What makes an entrepreneur successful is a number of key choices. Under similar circumstances, the choices of different entrepreneurs may be completely different. Zuckerberg and Suhua are the opposite example.

In 2005, The Washington Post and Silicon Valley venture capital Accel Partners competed for Facebook's Series A investment rights. The young Zuckerberg admires Washington Post chairman Donald Graham and has reached an oral agreement. But then Accel Partners offered double the price—investing $12.7 million at a valuation of $87.5 million. At the time, the social network had just been online for a year, and 5.5 million people were active each month.

After a few days of hesitation, Zuckerberg promised to accept the money from Accel Partners. At the gala dinner, Zuckerberg did not leave his seat halfway. When his peers found him, the 20-year-old founder sat on the restroom floor and cried, saying, “This is wrong; I can't do this. I've already promised others.”

That night, after calming down, Zuckerberg called Graham and finally broke the agreement and accepted investment from Silicon Valley Venture Capital.

Over the next ten years, Zuckerberg's choices may not have been so dramatic, but every time they were the same reality, making the best choice for the company.

In 2015, in China on the other side of the ocean, two major investment institutions DCM and Sequoia competed for Kuaishou's Series B investment rights. Kuaishou's Series B valuation was $60 million, and Sequoia raised the price to close to $120 million when it learned that DCM was preparing to win Kuaishou at a valuation of $80 million. At the time, Kuaishou had 17 employees, including two bosses, with zero income.

Kuaishou CEO Su Hua was hesitant at first. He called Lu Rong, DCM's managing partner at the time, and hoped that DCM would raise the price. In a subsequent conversation, Lu Rong told Su Hua that he hoped he could keep his promises and respect the contract.

In the end, Suhua accepted DCM's investment, and the price remained the same. Of course, this result was not entirely due to that conversation, but due to a number of factors, including DCM's TS (Letter of Intent to Invest) to Kuaishou two days earlier than Sequoia.

But at the time, Suhua had a choice, and he chose to keep his promise.

As a result, DCM became the institution with the highest return multiplier among Kuaishou investors. Its investment cost was about US$0.4 billion, and the return multiplier was as high as 298 times. Sequoia also paid off in Kuaishou in the next round. It invested a total of 160 million US dollars in Kuaishou and earned 6.3 billion US dollars as of today.

On February 5, 2021, Kuaishou was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The opening price on the same day was HK$338/share, up more than 190% from the issue price of HK$115, and the market capitalization exceeded HK$1.2 trillion (approximately US$154.8 billion) at the close. It is the fifth largest internet company in China after Tencent, Ali, Meituan, and Pinduoduo.

In today's Chinese internet scene, Kuaishou is one of the few platform-based companies that grew up after 2015. Kuaishou has raised a total of US$4.8 billion in 11 rounds of financing, with close to 30 investment institutions participating. Its funding process was relatively quiet, and BAT was involved, but they didn't rip each other apart.

This rare calm stems from Kuaishou not being favored for a long time and was able to grow on the edge of the range of giants and large funds; it was in a relatively healthy market competition environment. DST and Sequoia both asked ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming for opinions during the first round of investment in Kuaishou, and Zhang Yiming gave Kuaishou a positive review.

The most critical point is that the founders of the company are willing to put business rules and self-vision above interests at critical times, and choose investors who can run with them for a long time.

The biggest winner

Kuaishou's financing story began with Yuan Ye, an investment analyst at the time of Wuyuan Capital (previously Morningside Capital) and now a partner of Wuyuan Capital.

When Yuan Ye contacted Shang Yixiao via Weibo in 2014 and recommended him to Zhang Fei, a partner of Wuyuan Capital, Kuaishou was still a tool product called “Gif Kuaishou.” The house used by this company as an office was once so messy that it scared off interviewers who came looking for jobs.

Zhang Fei told “Late LatePost” that Wuyuan has been studying changes in rich media (rich media, meaning information other than text, such as images and videos) in the smartphone era since 2011. They have identified major trends in mobile social networking and video, and have been searching for investment targets around this direction.

Before investing in Kuaishou, Zhang Feigang pulled a star entrepreneur like Han Kun out of Cool 6 and invested in the short video product “Shoot in seconds” with a valuation of 1 million dollars. However, the Gif Kuaishou team only recruited two people. One was Cheng Yixiao's classmate, and the other was his former colleague.

Even so, as an angel investor, Wuyuan Capital injected 2 million yuan into Kuaishou, accounting for 20% of the shares. Wuyuan is also its only Series A investor and continues to raise bets in subsequent rounds B, B1, C, D1, and E. Before Tencent joined, Wuyuan was Kuaishou's largest institutional shareholder.

Wuyuan invested a total of 240 million US dollars in Kuaishou. It is estimated based on Kuaishou's closing stock price of HK$310 on the first day of listing. After deducting investment costs, Wuyuan Capital made a profit of about US$21.6 billion, a return multiplier of about 107 times.

Cheng Yixiao was not unknown at the time. In the entrepreneurial world, he is known as “Tiantongyuan Zhang Xiaolong” because of Gif Kuaishou's low-key and simple product style.

Wuyuan was the first VC to actually discover Kuaishou's value. Other than that, its biggest contribution to the company is that Su Hua, the current co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Kuaishou, was introduced by Yuan Ye, and Zhang Fei joined Kuaishou after matching.

This kind of matchmaking is probably the first in the history of venture capital in China. In 2013, in order to persuade Suhua to join, Wu Yuan and Cheng Yixiao each offered half of their shares.

Lu Rong (now the founder of Atypical Venture), an early investor of Kuaishou and managing partner of DCM, told “Late LatePost”, “The most important thing I've learned from Liu Qin (founder of Wuyuan Capital) is that one investor can change the fate of a company.”

Before Suhua joined, Kuaishou was on the verge of going out of business — the growth of daily active users fell into a bottleneck when it was less than one million, and the 2 million angel investment was about to be exhausted.

Zhang Fei said that Kuaishou's financing was very difficult at the time, and there was a risk of closing the company.

According to information, IDG, which invested in Station B (Bilibili), was the only agency that gave Kuaishou TS (Letter of Intent to Invest) at the time, but the project was eventually killed internally; Gan Jianping, then managing partner of Qiming Venture Capital, also watched Kuaishou, but ultimately rejected it.

Firmly enter

With the addition of Suhua, Kuaishou resumed growth and soon surpassed 1 million daily activities. Everything turned around — starting with the attitude of investors.

Zheng Xuanle, founder of Light Source Capital, told “Late LatePost” that at least a dozen investment institutions expressed their investment intentions during Kuaishou's Series B financing, and in the end, 4 TSs were given. Zheng Xuanle was the vice president of Qingke Capital at the time and was Kuaishou's financial advisor.

DCM, an established American venture capital agency, entered the market at this point.

After Zheng Xuanle introduced Kuaishou to Hu Boyu (now founder of XVC Fund), one of DCM's young investment managers at the time, Hu Boyu quickly brought the project to Lu Rong internally.

Lu Rong said that she noticed Su Hua in 2014. At the time, Su Hua had just left Baidu. Before leaving his job, he was the architect of Baidu's advertising recommendation system Fengchao System. At the time, Su Huashang didn't know what he wanted to do in the future. He had some entrepreneurial ideas, including developing a second-hand trading platform for idle fish. Along with Su Hua at the time was his former Baidu colleague, Zhang Dong, another well-known technical talent in the community.

Lu Rong decided to invest in Kuaishou, even though the company had only 17 people and zero income at the time. “There are quite a few entrepreneurs with ideas, but not many people can implement them, and Suhua's engineering ability is very strong.” she said.

“Why can two people in their 30s socialize as young people?” Kuaishou's project was challenged at the DCM Investment Committee. “Because it's a product made from the bottom of AI.” Lu Rong responded.

DCM managing partner Lin Xinhe, who has been exposed to American social media, saw the promise of being a youth community. “It's about the community, young, edgy.” he said.

At the final stage of signing the contract, Lu Rong received an urgent call from Suhua. Su Hua said she must meet her right away because a large institution is willing to invest at twice the initial valuation of this round of financing.

According to a friend, Cao Xi, who was also the investment manager of Sequoia China at the time, met Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao. Today, he is already a partner of Sequoia China. Before entering the industry, Cao Xi used to be a product manager at Tencent. One of the reasons he was optimistic about Kuaishou and promoted it within Sequoia was that Kuaishou was the first time he saw a product covering such a wide range of content products outside of Tencent, and it is likely to become a big thing.

An insider said that Kuaishou's Series B valuation is 60 million US dollars. Sequoia raised the price to close to 120 million US dollars when it learned that DCM was preparing to win Kuaishou at a valuation of 80 million US dollars.

I'm about to move on.

“I told him that I've never skipped the list for entrepreneurs, and I want us to respect this promise to each other.” Lu Rong said. The conversation ended at a Chinese restaurant in a five-star hotel in Beijing.

Su Hua agreed. “Very few entrepreneurs can do that.” Lu Rong said.

A person familiar with the matter said that the reality is much more complicated than this, including that DCM sent the TS (Letter of Intent to Invest) to Kuaishou two days earlier than Sequoia. In the end, DCM invested $15 million in Kuaishou and held nearly 20% of its shares at a valuation of $60 million. Since then, DCM has pitched in the D and E rounds of Kuaishou.

How can Sequoia be willing to let go?

Sequoia resolutely entered Kuaishou's Series C financing, and has since participated in Kuaishou's D and E rounds. “Let's find a way for both new and old stocks.” According to the above insider.

The entry of Sequoia directly boosted the pace and boosted the pace. Kuaishou's valuation before the C round was 800 million US dollars, and the D round rose to more than 2 billion US dollars. By the E round in 2018, the valuation directly increased to 18 billion US dollars.

According to information, Sequoia not only invested 70 million US dollars in new shares in the E round, but also bought 35 million US dollars of old shares.

In 2014, Sequoia China and DST both consulted ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming's opinions before investing in Kuaishou. Sequoia and DST are also investors in ByteDance. Zhang Yiming gave Kuaishou a very positive review at the time.

Four years later, things have changed. Before and after Kuaishou's new round of financing, ByteDance was also financing. “Late LatePost” learned that starting in 2018, ByteDance began requiring in investment terms that investors participating in financing cannot participate in Kuaishou's financing at the same time. A number of well-known funds have been affected.

2018 was the most competitive year for Douyin and Kuaishou. According to Kuaishou's official disclosure, the number of Kuaishou daily active users exceeded 160 million this year, while Douyin, which was born in '16, overtook this year, reaching 250 million daily activity.

Finally, Kuaishou completed the financing, and Sequoia only maintained its original shareholding ratio. However, since then, Sequoia has also successfully participated in ByteDance's new round of financing.

Judging from the results, Sequoia is the only large fund that exists in Kuaishou and ByteDance projects at the same time and has reaped a lot of money. Sequoia also respected the CEOs' opinions and automatically withdrew from Kuaishou's board of directors.

Sequoia has invested a total of $160 million in Kuaishou and has earned $6.3 billion to date.

After round B, Kuaishou entered a stage of rapid development. At the end of 2014, this short video platform, which had no promotion or growth strategy, grew DAU from 500,000 to 8 million due to natural growth, surpassing all competitors.

At the beginning of 2015, Zheng Xuanle introduced Kuaishou to DST, a global investment agency interested in the Chinese market. At the time, the person responsible for the Kuaishou project was funded by DST partner Zhou in China.

Zhou Shuji has led DST's investments in Xiaomi, JD, and Alibaba. In 2013, he participated in DST's $10 million Series B investment in ByteDance. Currently, Zhou is the senior vice president of Xiaomi and president of the international department, and is heavily used by Lei Jun.

DST has invested in giants such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. One thing they all have in common is that at the time of the $1 billion valuation, the company's revenue situation was poor.

According to a Kuaishou investor, DST's quick decision to invest in Kuaishou was partly due to Kuaishou's “China Instagram” story at the time: helping ordinary people use short videos to record their lives and form social networks.

Instagram happened to be DST's heartache, and was blocked by Facebook on the day they were preparing to sign a contract with the company.

Zheng Xuanle said that one of the reasons Kuaishou impressed DST founder Yuri Milner (Yuri Milner) was Suhua's insistence on the product. “Before Kuaishou had 1 billion users, revenue wasn't that important.” Su Hua told Yuri in a video conference. An hour later, DTS decided to invest in Kuaishou at a valuation of $800 million.

“Why not $1 billion?” Zheng Xuanle asked Yuri on the spot.

“Because I like the number 8.” Yuri said.

“If you believe it can reach 100 billion dollars, is there a difference between the current valuation of 800 million and 1 billion?” Zheng Xuanle said, “It's better to set our pre-investment valuation of 888.88 million US dollars, plus 110 million US dollars of financing, which is exactly 1 billion US dollars after the investment.

After an hour, DTS China partner Zhou was funded to reply, “Good idea!”

A mirror of a giant

Kuaishou's financing process is like a mirror; it reflects the strategies, organization, and desires of BAT's three giants at the time.

Baidu was the first giant company to invest in and support Kuaishou. At the time, Kuaishou had not yet begun commercialization, which showed its vision. However, after Baidu invested 88 million US dollars in Kuaishou, held 5% of its shares, and joined the board of directors, it never increased its holdings in Kuaishou. Since then, Baidu relinquished its strategic position to Tencent.

Baidu held 3.78% of Kuaishou's IPO, ranking behind Tencent, Wuyuan Capital, DCM, and DST.

Back in time to 2015, when Baidu decided on an investment strategy based on the content ecosystem, the War Investment Department began to take stock of the academic, game, and video-related projects on the market.

Zhang Zitao, who was Baidu's investment director at the time, spent a lot of time studying the emerging field of short video, including the famous beauty and seconds shooting at the time. He observed an app called Kuaishou in the internal data system. It is not well known, but data such as number of downloads, activity, and user time far exceeds that of similar products. Coincidentally, when he was eating grilled skewers and Haidilao on the side of the road during that time, he noticed a waiter next to him brushing fast hands during breaks.

When he tried to push for a vote on Kuaishou within Baidu, he met resistance. “At that point in 2015, people initially thought the product was weird, and it wasn't easy to understand its value.” Zhang Zitao said.

At Baidu, investment projects often require support from relevant business departments and joint decision-making.

Until Zhang Zitao pushed the project into the hands of Lu Fubin, former vice president of Baidu and general manager of Tieba. At the time, Lu Fubin had just left his job as the global head of Amazon's marketing services department and joined Baidu. He checked Tieba's data and found that Kuaishou was mentioned a very high number of times among Tieba users.

“Follow these Tieba users and you'll understand right away. You don't need to say that if I don't understand this product, this product isn't good. Data can talk, especially data that is very regular.” Lu Fubin told “Late LatePost.”

The value of Kuaishou can be seen through data. In addition to Baidu, Shunwei Capital participated in Kuaishou's $20 million C1 round of financing in 2015 with Sequoia.

Lei Jun, founding partner and chairman of Shunwei Capital, is also the founder of Xiaomi. At that time, the industry did not have rich internet data monitoring tools, and the data was mainly in the hands of app stores and mobile phone manufacturers — this gave them a good investment opportunity. But the few will always seize the opportunity.

In 2015, both Tencent and Ali declined Kuaishou's financing offer. In the end, Baidu led Kuaishou's Series D financing at a price of 2.1 billion US dollars, and Lu Fubin represented Baidu on Kuaishou's board of directors.

Shortly thereafter, Baidu's combat investment department underwent personnel adjustments: Zhang Zitao left his job and joined Zhenge; He Haiwen “transferred” to the financial business, where she was responsible for Baidu's entire strategy and investment business; Yi Ran, another person involved in the Kuaishou project, also left his job at this time and joined CMC Capital.

CMC Capital is also a Kuaishou D1 and E Series investor.

In addition to personnel turmoil, “Baidu is not strong enough strategically.” A Kuaishou investor said.

Baidu once hoped that Kuaishou could jointly develop short video ads with itself to form a strategic collaboration. In mid-2016, Kuaishou began commercialization experiments. It chose live streaming instead of advertising as the main monetization method, which reduced the strategic synergy between Kuaishou and Baidu.

A similar story also happened to Baidu and Didi. Back then, Baidu abandoned its investment in Didi because it couldn't find a strategic collaboration between search and taxi.

The Kuaishou case was put on hold. “In Kuaishou's D1 round of financing, James (Lu Fubin) even asked whether he could invest his own money to invest in shares, but in the end, this proposal was rejected by senior management.” The person mentioned above said.

“Late LatePost” previously reported that in 2017, Li Yanhong's wife Ma Dongmin returned to Baidu. One of the first few things was to find the person responsible for “why did Baidu not continue to follow Kuaishou”.

Tencent showed more flexible combat power in the Kuaishou project.

Kuaishou first came into contact with Tencent in 2014, but Tencent had no interest in it. “At the time, DCM directly contacted Martin (Tencent President Liu Chiping).” One investor said. Since 2013, Tencent has been developing its own short video product, Microvideo.

Microvision never improved and it grew rapidly. It took less than a year for Tencent to realize that investing was a more effective method — this is different from Baidu's idea of missing UC to add Baidu's browser, abandoning investment in Baidu Maps, and abandoning popular reviews to focus on glutinous rice.

At the end of 2016, Tencent took the initiative to take a stake in Kuaishou. A person close to the D1 round of financing told “Delayed LatePost” that Tencent's offer was 2.7 billion US dollars, which is only 700 million more than Baidu's offer the previous year.

This is a very delicate offer. At the end of 2015, Kuaishou had only 20 million daily activities, no business model, and zero profit; a year later, Kuaishou had more than 40 million daily activities, found a business model and achieved profit.

At the same time, Tencent also proposed two other conditions: WeChat login reservation and QQ login reservation.

“Stable and cheap.” An investor commented on this round of financing to the reporter.

In this round, old shareholders such as Wuyuan, DCM, DST, Sequoia, CMC, and Shunwei all followed suit.

Why didn't Baidu, which holds 5% of Kuaishou's shares and is on the board of directors, sniper Tencent's investment?

A person familiar with the matter said that Baidu was not firm about investing in Kuaishou. At the same time, Tencent took an ambush; Baidu was the last to know.

Baidu's representative on the board of directors at the time was Vice President Lu Fubin. “Tencent knows James (Lu Fubin) won't let go easily.” Therefore, before informing Baidu, I greeted the rest of Kuaishou's board members, including Su Hua, Cheng Yixiao, Wuyuan Capital, and DCM.

“This is Tencent's decision.” The above sources told “Late LatePost.”

Tencent is the most profitable of all Kuaishou institutional investors; it has earned around $25.86 billion.

Although Baidu did not choose to follow Kuaishou, it also earned 4.9 billion US dollars, or 56 times the return, which is one of the most successful investments in Baidu's history.

Alibaba was the most lost; it missed Kuaishou from the beginning. A Kuaishou investor said that Ali's bid for Kuaishou was very low because of its relationship with Weibo, and Kuaishou was once the biggest enemy of the short video platform supported by Weibo.

“Late LatePost” once reported that in 2016, Cai Chongxin, executive vice chairman of the board of directors of Ali, had a disagreement with Yu Yongfu, then president of Alibaba Entertainment and member of the Alibaba Investment Decision Committee, on the Kuaishou project. Yu Yongfu is not optimistic about Kuaishou.

Before coming into contact with Kuaishou, Ali's Youku Live Streaming team spent half a year investing resources in the development of a short video product. However, after the team submitted the report, the project was rejected by Yu Yongfu.

Soon, Kuaishou accepted investment from Baidu and Tencent in 2016. Cai Yu's conflict intensified. A few months later, Yu Yongfu left Alibaba Entertainment. Ali, who missed Kuaishou, didn't gain much in the short video and community product investment circuit. Then the industry exploded, and Alibaba took a stake in Bilibili.

Earlier, there were media reports that Yunfeng Fund, which has a close relationship with Ali, participated in Kuaishou's financing. However, in the end, Ali Capital did not appear on Kuaishou's shareholder list.

Universal Gravitation

2016 was a turning point for Kuaishou. It launched the live streaming business this year, and since then, the commercialization of Kuaishou has been on the fast track.

Before it was commercialized, investors were like “circling vultures,” waiting, hesitating, and uncertain; after achieving profits, investors' concerns were greatly reduced; after Tencent entered the market, the market boomed.

Investors flocked in. Chen Xian, partner of the Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund (CMC Capital), said that if CMC Capital had a good relationship with Kuaishou and obtained the right to subsequent investments in the D round, they probably wouldn't be able to invest.

CMC Capital was founded by Li Ruigang, Chairman of Chinese Culture Group. It participated in Kuaishou's Series D, D1, and Series E financing. Chinese culture and CMC have extensive coverage in the fields of entertainment and content, as well as rich experience in cooperation in government policies and regulatory systems, which are beneficial to Kuaishou.

What is very realistic is, “In the Baidu and CMC rounds, none of the old investors followed suit. But after that, Kuaishou suddenly became profitable, and financial investors began to push the company to go public.” A Kuaishou investor told “Late LatePost.”

At the beginning of 2017, news of Kuaishou's listing in the US began to spread frequently.

At the end of 2016, Kuaishou co-founder Su Hua said in an interview with the “Finance and Economics” reporter that he has many restrictions.

“Countless people have given me advice. Why don't you make today's headlines. I said I don't want to do it. Their goal is to do something that can achieve growth, but that's not my original intention.” Su Hua said.

Chen Xian told “Late LatePost” that Kuaishou is not short of money; it never promotes; it still has hundreds of millions of dollars on its account. Therefore, with every round of financing, Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao tend to choose investors with long-term strategic values and shared values.

Since Tencent joined Kuaishou's board of directors in March 2017, it has led every round of financing since Kuaishou (with the exception of the E1 round, in which China Internet Investment Fund participated independently).

According to information, Tencent continued to increase its Kuaishou holdings in 2019 by purchasing old shares of DCM and Baidu.

“Short videos are Tencent's core business.” A person from Tencent's investment department said. The importance of Kuaishou to Tencent is self-evident, but Tencent has also gradually realized that it cannot fully control Kuaishou in the same way that it controls Huga and Betta.

It didn't help Tencent successfully resist Douyin's growth and expansion. At the same time, Kuaishou competed with Tencent on some levels.

“Late LatePost” once reported that at the Tencent high-level meeting held in October 2019, a core executive pointed out that media-based Douyin won't affect Tencent's business too much; on the contrary, if Kuaishou's social networking is implemented, it may have a greater impact on Tencent.

Microvision is Tencent's direct force in the industrialization of content. Tencent will not only continue to invest, but will also increase its investment. The strategic position of WeChat determines that it is difficult for Kuaishou to obtain a level 1 or 2 entry on WeChat, a 30-second video in the relationship chain and circle of friends.

According to information, Tencent tried to buy Kuaishou at one point, but was ultimately rejected by Suhua and Cheng Yixiao.

A person close to Tencent's investment department told “Late LatePost” that during the final round of funding before Kuaishou's IPO, Tencent and Kuaishou had discussed setting up a joint venture. The main direction was games, which could include live streaming, short videos, or communities.

However, in the end, no one gave up, and the two sides completed this financing in the form of “lead investment+ cooperation”. The joint venture's plan was rejected.

There is no company that doesn't want to grow independently. Cheng Wei, founder of Didi, once said that the **** of this world is universal gravitation, just like the moon must follow the Earth's rules, and the Earth follows the sun's rules. By the time you have the same mass as the Earth, you'll have a stronger voice, but if you can turn into the Sun, the Earth will revolve around you.

So growing up is the key.

Looking back at the financing process, Kuaishou is a relatively positive example in the history of venture capital in China: it was not forced to pursue commercialization too early; it was not pressured by investors to go public; and it showed confidence and determination in dealing with giants.

Prior to the listing, no one could have predicted that Kuaishou could reach 210 billion US dollars, including Suhua herself and the investors behind Kuaishou.

Kuaishou created excessive and even huge returns for the investment institutions behind it. Tencent made the most money, which made more than $25.8 billion; the highest return was DCM, which received nearly 300 times the return in 7 years; Wuyuan invested in Kuaishou in 2012 to promote Kuaishou's transformation from a tool to a community, and cooperated with Cheng Yijiao and Suhua to take charge of the company, pioneering a new style of VC play.

Kuaishou has been in its 10th year since its establishment. Under ByteDance's fierce offensive, it has remained stable at 300 million basic markets until now. The investors behind Kuaishou are winners, and those who have achieved new success at the time of listing are also winners, but in all success stories about startups, the biggest winners will always be the entrepreneurs themselves.

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We calculated the estimated returns of investors before Kuaishou using the information provided in Kuaishou's prospectus. In the estimated return, only the profit generated by each institution buying shares from Kuaishou was calculated, not including the return on the purchase of old shares. Of course, actual returns also depend on when investors prepare to sell these stocks and the stock price performance after Kuaishou.

Here are the return statistics:

Five source capital

Wuyuan Capital was the earliest to enter the market. In the early days of Kuaishou's growth, Wuyuan partner Zhang Fei recommended Suhua to join Kuaishou. Wuyuan Capital placed multiple consecutive rounds of betting in A, B, B-1, C, D-1, and E rounds, and witnessed Kuaishou's growth from a tool product to a comprehensive ecosystem.

Judging from how much money it made, Wuyuan Capital became the second winner after Tencent. Wuyuan Capital invested a total of about 200 million US dollars in Kuaishou's financing process. It is estimated based on Kuaishou's closing stock price of HK$310 on the first day of listing. After deducting investment costs, Wuyuan Capital made a profit of about US$21.6 billion, a return multiplier of about 107 times.

DCM

After Kuaishou went public, DCM was the institution with the highest return multiplier.

In Kuaishou's B round, DCM Capital led Kuaishou Technology's Series B financing, and continued to invest in the D-1 and E rounds. The total investment cost was approximately $0.4 billion, the return multiplier was 298 times, and approximately $12 billion was earned.

Sequoia

Sequoia also entered the C round, investing $0.2 billion. Sequoia made continuous investments in the C-1, D-1, and E rounds in Kuaishou's next few rounds of financing. Sequoia Capital invested a total of about $160 million and earned $4 billion, which multiplied the return by about 26 times.

DST

DST entered in round C and did not cost much per share, around $0.39. DST entered the E round in March 2018, investing a total of about US$140 million and making about US$8.3 billion. The return multiplier is 60x.

Baidu

Baidu only entered the D round, but investing in Kuaishou still made Baidu quite a bit of money. In January 2016, Baidu invested $88 million in Kuaishou and earned $4.9 billion. The return is approximately 56 times.

Tencent

Tencent was the winner who made the most money after Kuaishou went public, at around US$25.86 billion.

Kuaishou followed suit several times in the D round, D-1 round, E round, F-1 round, and F-2 round. Although Tencent has bet on Kuaishou several times in a row, since Kuaishou's cost per share in the E and F rounds is already relatively high, Tencent's return multiplier is only 12 times.

Shunwei Capital

Shunwei Capital entered Kuaishou's C-1 round in July 2015. I also pitched for the D-1 round and the E round. A total of $23 million was invested, and the return multiplier was 45 times.

CMC Capital

CMC Capital also first entered the market in Round D. However, CMC followed suit in the D-1 round and the E round that followed. The total investment was approximately $89 million, and the return was 25 times greater.

Boyu Capital

Boyu Capital only entered the F-2 round, but the sharp rise in Kuaishou's market capitalization still allowed Boyu's return multiplier to only 6 times. Based on the closing price on the day of listing, Boyu Capital still earned about 2.47 billion US dollars.

China Internet Investment Fund (limited partnership)

The China Internet Investment Fund (limited partnership) entered Kuaishou's E-1 round. The investment cost was about US$180 million, and the return was about US$1.3 billion, which is more than seven times the return.

The China Internet Investment Fund (Limited Partnership) was jointly initiated by the State Internet Information Office and the Ministry of Finance to focus on the Internet sector.

Yun Liangtai (Hong Kong) Investment Co., Ltd.

Yun Leung Tai (Hong Kong) Investment Co., Ltd. entered the D-1 round in March 2017 and only cast for this round. Runliangtai invested about $4 million, earned $220 million, and returned 45 times.

The manager of Runliangtai Fund is Shanghai Juliang Equity Investment Management Company. The core management team includes Yang Yuxiang and Shao Ping. Yang Yuxiang has worked for CITIC Securities and Ping An Securities. Shao Ping, on the other hand, is the former vice president of Minsheng Bank and the former governor of Ping An Bank.

Yun Liangtai also subscribed to iQiyi's convertible bonds and invested in a bit of information.

Temasek

Established in 1974, Temasek is an international investment company headquartered in Singapore. Temasek entered the F round of Kuaishou, invested $200 million, and returned about 5.6 times.

PV Poseidon

PV Poseidon entered in the Kuaishou E round. After the E-round of Kuaishou, valuations began to soar. The company invested $120 million and made around $809 million. The return was approximately 7.7 times.

Other investment institutions

Concept Thrive Limited and Merit New Limited both entered Kuaishou's F-2 round in February 2020 with large sums of money. Although the price per share in the F round of Kuaishou is already much higher than before, it still hasn't prevented the two companies from making more than $1 billion. The return multiplier is 5.6x.

LUPIN TM 2 Co.Ltd, Library Group, and Wen Yuan all entered Kuaishou's F-2 round. Although they entered the game late, they still got a 5.6x return.

MIC Capital Co., Ltd. (MIC Capital) is also a fast player in the F-2 round of investment. The investment cost was approximately $75 million, and $349 million was earned.

Meihong Investment Co., Ltd. and Tigercub Anatole United Co., Limited invested in Kuaishou's D-1 round, and the return multiplier was about 45 times. The two companies earned $134 million and $2.2 billion, respectively.

The four companies High Bliss Limited, Happy Elite Limited, Keystone KS Limited, and Kuan & Young KS Limited have all invested multiple times in Kuaishou B, C, and D-1 rounds, all with return multiples of over 140 times.

However, despite many rounds of investment in these companies, the investment costs are not high. High Bliss Limited, which invested the most, was only around $3 million.