Top 10 Chinese Entrepreneurs under 40



Top 10 Chinese Entrepreneurs under 40

The Chinese version of Fortune magazine has published a list of 40 young business elites in China under the age of 40. Most candidates are to be found in the internet industry and 7 are under 30.

The youngest is 26-year-old Wang Naichen， founder of a hardware startup accelerator base in Zhongguancun， or “China's Silicon Valley”.

Heading the list are Liu Qing and Cheng Wei， co-founders of Didi Kuaidi， China's biggest taxi-hailing application.

Yao Jinbo， chairman and chief executive officer of 58 Inc， and group-buying site Meituan's CEO Wang Xing were ranked second and third respectively.

Age and company potential are the major selection criteria for candidates， according to the magazine.

The list of young entrepreneurs is in its ffh year.

No 1 Liu Qing and Cheng Wei，co-founders of Didi Kuaidi

Didi Kuaidi is China's biggest taxi-hailing application based in Beijing. The company is the result of the merger between Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache. Before the merger the two companies had most of the market in China between the two of them. By September 2015， the company had a market share in private cars of 80 percent and in taxis of 99 percent.

The company's three-year goal is to serve 30 million passengers and 10 million drivers daily， as well as to pick up anyone from anywhere within "only 3 minutes".

As China's largest mobile-based carbooking services provider， Didi Kuaidi has been given a formal license from transportation authorities in Shanghai for its ride-hailing services in the city in October 2015.

Using privately-owned cars to offer taxi-like services was not allowed in China until the Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission gave the country's first Internet car-booking license to Didi Kuaidi.

Didi Kuaidi， which completed a financing round of $3 billion， has surged ahead of Uber Technologies Inc. by getting the license.

No 2 Yao Jinbo， chairman and CEO of 58 Inc

58 Inc provides a range of online advertising listings including job advertisements， housing and used goods trading.

According to the CEO Yao， 58 aims to be the biggest real estate market information provider by users and revenue.

58 Inc has acquired a Shanghai-based real estate Internet platform， Anjuke Inc， in stock and cash valued at $267 million.

58 Inc and Ganji Inc has signed a merger agreement.

No 3 Wang Xing，CEO of Meituan

Meituan was founded in Beijing in 2010 by Wang Xing. It offers deals of the day for locally found consumer products and retail services by selling vouchers on local services and entertainment. As of May 2014， the company has 5，000 employees.

The company received initial funding of $12 million from Sequoia Capital. In May 2014， global growth equity firm General Atlantic led a $300 million series C funding round with two other investors.

Thousands of group-buying sites emerged in China not long after Groupon got traction in the U.S. Meituan was among the earliest.

Meituan took a very different way in marketing: （1） It bought online marketing instead of offline ad space； （2） It didn't spend venture money on marketing， at least by July 2012.

Meituan has been positioned as a "local life service provider"， targeting the service sector， restaurants， movie theaters， barber shops， karaoke bars， and so on.

No 4 Fu Sheng， CEO of Cheetah Mobile

Cheetah Mobile Inc is based in Beijing. It is best known as the developer of the Battery Doctor， Clean Master， Duba Antivirus， and for purchasing QuickPic Gallery from the original developer. It has more than 395.4 million monthly active users as of December 2014.

The company was established in 2010 as a merger of Kingsoft Security and Conew Image， and grew to be the second largest internet security software provider in China，according to iResearch.

In 2014， Cheetah Mobile launched an IPO selling 12 million American Depositary Shares at $14 per share， and thereby raised $168 million. The IPO was managed by Morgan Stanley， JP Morgan Chase & Co.， and Credit Suisse Group. Kingsoft and Tencent are major investors in Cheetah Mobile holding 54 percent and 18 percent respectively.

Cheetah Mobile's products include Computer applications， Games， Mobile applications and so on.

Cheetah Mobile's current goal is to move faster in the overseas mobile market. It set up a business development center in San Francisco and a R&D operations in Taiwan. Recently Cheetah also reached partnership with two smartphone makers from outside mainland China， India-based Karbonn and Lava and Taiwan-based HTC， to promote its mobile apps， according to management.

No 5 Wang Xiaochuan，CEO of Sougou

Sogou was launched on August 3， 2004 and is owned by Sohu Inc. Sogou can search text， images， music， and maps.

Sogou operates the search engine and others business and offers Internet valueadded services with respect to Web games developed by third-party developers. Primary products include search engine，Sogou Pinyin input， and Sogou Web Directory.

China is now the second biggest search engine market， after the U.S. with a market size of $14.9 billion. And China search engine advertising market's growth rate will be 32.8 percent， which is twice than the average growth rate worldwide in 2015.

No 6 Tang Yan，CEO of Momo

Momo is a free location-based services instant messaging application for smartphones and tablets. The app allows users to chat with nearby friends and strangers.

Momo provides users with free instant messaging services through Wifi， 3G and 4G. The client software is available Android，iOS， and Windows Phone. Momo Inc officially began operations in July 2011， and one month later launched the first version of the app for iOS. Tang Yan is the current CEO of Momo Inc， which filed for a US IPO on Nov 7， 2014.

Prior to the founding of Beijing Momo，Tang Yan worked as editor and then editorin-chief at NetEase Inc. Momo Inc's prospectus reported 60.2 million MAU in Sept 2014.

No 7 Yu Dunde，CEO of Tuniu

Tuniu， founded in 2006， offers a wide array of travel-related services and packaged tours to more than 70 countries worldwide， including many popular tourist destinations in China.

Chinese outbound tourism is likely to reach $264 billion by 2019 from $164 billion in 2014， according to Bank of America.

Nasdaq-listed Tuniu， which specializes in selling packaged tours and cruises， reported $570 million in 2014 revenue， up 81 percent from a year before.

No 8 Ren Yuxi， CEO of Tencent Holdings

Tencent Holdings， based in Shenzhen，Guangdong Province， provides media，entertainment， internet and mobile phone value-added services， and operate online advertising services in China， including social network， web portals， e-commerce，and multiplayer online games. Its products include the QQ （well-known in China），an instant messenger and one of the largest web portals in China， and WeChat，a mobile chat service that has helped bolster Tencent's continued expansion into smartphone services.

It is one of the largest Internet companies in the world. Tencent's JD（an online shopping mall） competes with Amazon， Google， Ebay， Facebook and Alibaba.

On April 13， 2015， the market value of Tencent exceeded $200 billion for the first time， hitting $206 billion. On September 8，2015， Tencent became the largest Internet company in Asia by value after Alibaba Group Holdings suffered a major drop （$141 Billion over 10 months） in its share value.

RenYuxin was promoted to Chief Operating Officer of the Company in May 2012， leading the overall operation of Interactive Entertainment Group， Mobile Internet Group and Social Network Group. Prior to Tencent， he worked in Huawei Technologies （another well-known IT company）.

No 9 Wang Tao，founder of DJI Technology

DJI is based in Shenzhen， Guangdong province. Founded in 2006 by Frank Wang（Wang Tao）， it manufactures commercial and recreational unmanned aerial vehicles（UAV） for aerial photography and videography.

According to The Economist， the company is at the forefront of the civiliandrone industry.

DJI manufactures a range of products including flying cameras （ex. Inspire and Phantom series）， flying platforms， flight controllers for multi rotors， accessories for helicopters， camera gimballs （aerial， handheld）and ground stations. These products are for industrial， professional and amateur use.

DJI products have a wide range of applications in industry and in everyday life with models for professionals and amateurs. Although initially known for military and intelligence applications， drones have many surprising civilian uses. For example， they can be used for hurricane hunting， 3-D mapping of landscape， nature protection，farming， and search and rescue. DJI drones have made dramatic appearances at the Consumer Electronics Show （CES） of Las Vegas， Nevada， US for several years.

No 10Dai Kebin，CEO of Lietou

In terms of the number of top headhunters who are members， Lietou， a website set up in 2006， outshines competing websites， where traditional talent-scouting solutions still prevail.

Nearly 10，000 headhunting firms have joined the websites in China.

With the hope of landing a top position that is only available through a headhunter， a total of 100，000 overseas Chinese have become users as well. Lietou's target customers are elite personnel， who are very few in number. Market insiders noted that the emergence of Lietou is likely to reshuffle China's online job-hunting market， which was previously dominated by the websites 51job， Zhaopin and Chinahr.

Dai， who was a brand manager of P&G China， said he was initially interested in building a social networking platform like LinkedIn， but this model was not very profitable in China， he found.

China's 30 to 40 million mid- and highlevel personnel have no need for another place to browse job listings. Instead， they want closer contacts with headhunters.