“ tomato gives the standard answer to “how to invest in a good food and beverage project”. ”This article is from the official account: ID:China-Venture, author: Cao Weiyu.You must have noticed that in this wave of consumer games, in addition to the large funds blooming on all sides, there are always several new faces that often appear, seemingly familiar but not familiar. They are either deep ploughing for a long time, or just established, or cross-border force. They have different genes, but they all point to one result – becoming a power of consumption and investment that can not be ignored. Negatives has launched an external chapter, negatives nova, which focuses on the new investment forces that deserve the most attention.Today, let’s talk about tomato capital, the kind of “cultivation and debut”.The 10-month valuation has increased 500 times Founded in 2017, tomato capital is a fund focusing on catering brands and supply chain. It is very vertical and a little niche.There are two items that make tomatoes out of the circle: first, Banu hot-pot/" 22375 rel="nofollow" target="_self">hot pot; 2、 Mo Mo dim sum Bureau.Let’s start with Banu.The news of Banu’s new financing has not stopped in the past two months. What I heard is that the management has robbed fiercely. They are all big players, with a financing amount of several billion and a valuation of more than 20 billion yuan.Here we have to say “but”.However, in March last year, tomatoes were invested in Banu, nearly 100 million yuan, exclusive.What about valuation“ A mere 1.8 billion yuan.Assuming that the figure is true, the book value of tomato investment has increased more than ten times in less than a year and a half.What about the Momo dim sum bureau? A little tougher.How hot is the baking track this year? Mo Mo, one of the best, has four rounds of financing a year, and its valuation is not good – it is said that after the capital admission today, the post investment valuation of Mo Mo is as high as 2 billion yuan. What about the number of stores? The data of narrow door meal eye (the database of tomato boss Qing Yong) is that of the 17 businesses, 3 are suspended and 9 are about to open.Mo Mo heard that the latest round of financing is about to be delivered. After calculation, the valuation of a single store must still be more than 100 million.This project has attracted many investors, but tomato is the earliest and probably the largest external investor.How did this “earliest” come from? If you answer this question, you can understand the core competitiveness of the fund.According to public information, Wang Dan, the founder of Mo Mo, once participated in the narrow door society under Qing Yong, during which he had the entrepreneurial idea of Chinese dim sum. Later, he got the round financing of zero hatching seeds under narrow door group (the group to which tomato capital belongs), with a valuation of only 5 million yuan. After that, tomato continued to increase its weight and became the largest external shareholder.The record of Tomato’s investment in Mo Mo can be called plagiarism – “500 times in 10 months”, said Qing Yong, founder of tomato capital.However, these two cases reflect the competitiveness of tomatoes in different dimensions. Li Xiaojun, partner of IDG capital, talked about a “luck theory” in our previous interview. Let’s put it on the tomato and see what results we can get.Li Xiaojun said that people have four kinds of luck:The first kind of “pure luck”, pie falling from the sky;The second kind of “luck to do” is to always stand there busy and always encounter luck;Third, “luck for those who are prepared”, you should do research, analysis and more systematic layout;The fourth is “luck with unique ability” – only you have some ability, others can do things through you.Tomatoes hit barnu, close to the second kind of luck. The long-term catering industry always has the opportunity to speak. Last year, an epidemic changed the collective attitude of catering bosses who have always had enough cash flow and refused to relax their capital.So in February and March 2020, you can see that in our report, Jia Guolong said that Xibei couldn’t carry it for three months without financing, but what we didn’t pay much attention to at that time was that at this time, Jiahua capital invested in wenheyou and tomato invested in Banu.Here, one thing can not be ignored – the first. At that time, tomato had “actively cooperated with Banu for 3 or 4 years”, and the foundation of trust had been laid. Founder Du zhongbing even certified tomato as a “comrade in arms who can fight side by side”.What about Mo Mo?In my opinion, it is closer to the third or fourth luck. Some people say that Mo Mo is a project hatched by tomatoes. There is no external research on this matter, but one thing is relatively certain. Tomatoes have a forward-looking judgment on the baking track, and tomatoes have a greater chance to invest earlier and have a more solid relationship than others.Whenever the general trend comes, some investment opportunities will naturally occur. Tomato, whether you say it is “prepared” or “unique”, has finally achieved it.This month, tomato and meituan Longzhu threw a dumpling restaurant, which is also a little interesting.Uncle Xiong dumpling restaurant has a round of financing, meituan Longzhu leads the investment, and tomato capital follows the investment. Similar to Mo Mo, zero hatching of narrow gate group is also the investor of Uncle Xiong’s seed round. The caliber of tomato is “actively cooperating with the founder to start this project and providing a series of support”. I have also heard that tomatoes have played an important role in Uncle Xiong’s key business decisions.Standard demonstration of investing in “not bad money” catering As an institution, the path of tomato is a little special.How many steps do you take to make tomatoes “bear fruit”? Qing Yong gives the answer in three steps.The first step is to make a choice. Qing Yong’s choice of catering is more like an “exclusion method”. In 2014, “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” was hot. Qing Yong, who has done catering, education and investment, began to think about how to become a top institution like Sequoia and Gaoling. It is observed that the mainstream tracks such as TMT, education and consumption have been “rolling”. Qing Yong focuses on the vertical catering track – there is enough development space, few competitors and low capitalization, but it has prospects.The second step is to provide services. To enter, we must first find the threshold. Qingyong’s first step is not to invest, but to serve. In 2015, Qing Yong established the narrow door society and opened consulting and data services, namely narrow door consulting and narrow door dining eyes. In 2016, he began incubation.The third step is to invest. In 2017, Qing Yong established tomato capital. Most of the LP were catering CVCs such as Juewei, jiumaojiu and xijiade. Later, he invested in Banu, wangjiadu, Momo dim sum Bureau, Forrest Gump guohelmet, Weiyuan Hongfang, Baman rice noodles, Fengmao roasted string, Jinge black bean fried chicken, etc. there are food and beverage brands and spices in the supply chain.Take tomatoes as a GP. I do see a lot of weapons. To what extent will this help his investment? Outsiders are not good at quantitative evaluation, but at least two points are determined.First, the ability of tomato deal sourcing is strong. Consumption souring threshold is not high, you can tiktok, Xiao Hong book can also find items, more advanced and willing to invest, may do industry data monitoring. But what about tomatoes? There is already a multi-dimensional database covering offline catering, that is, the narrow door catering eye. With a more comprehensive information foundation and advanced sourcing tools, the sensitivity will be better. Therefore, you can see that tomato has invested a lot in the “first round of the project”.Second, the ability to take projects is also strong. Catering is a popular cash industry. It is not bad for money. Its awareness of capital is still low. Practitioners are closer to “businessmen”. They talk about circles and pay attention to loyalty. The habitual behavior mode of mainstream investors is sometimes not very work. Whether they can impress each other and really help has become the core competitiveness of whether they can invest.Don’t underestimate this. Almost every investment story of recent catering star projects has the same element – the VC who has always been tall put down his body and went into fireworks, worked hard for catering enterprises, and finally moved the founder, so he has the opportunity to invest.Tomato, which started by serving and building a circle, naturally has advantages at the “human” level. Tomatoes are likely to become “their own people” who can help catering entrepreneurs in the future, which is really a “moat”.Looking back, no matter barnu, Mo Mo and even uncle Xiong, tomato gives a standard sample of “how to invest in a good money catering project”.Some “luck” has been cashed. What’s next? The accumulation and cognition of Tomato in the catering industry is deep and long, but today it is not without luck.Qing Yong used the “exclusion method” to choose catering, and then insisted on standing here. It was not exactly accurate prediction, but verification while practicing – until 2017, Qing Yong strengthened this direction through research and data.Persistence is a matter of skill and concentration. Qing Yong shared a story. He once wanted to pull Xu Xin to be an LP. When inviting someone to introduce him, Xu Xin asked, “don’t you give up on the catering track?”?That’s the answer given by big names. You know, today’s capital has successively invested in West young master, typhoon shelter and laochangsheng soup bag in 2014 and 2015. After that, and even this year, almost all institutions have invested in catering, but Xu Xin has never done it again.The upsurge is always sudden, and so is the catering fever in 2021. No one can predict, including Qing Yong. When he began to invest in catering, he predicted that it would take 10 years to open the door of catering capitalization, but he didn’t expect it to be realized within five years.However, we all know that although catering is a track with thick snow on Changpo, it can not always be like this year.The tide has risen this year, and then? You know, since the first half of the year, I have been hearing about empty consumption and catering investment.In addition, in the VC industry, how big is the first mover advantage? Can you play on a scale? You know, tomato is AUM “only” 1 billion yuan at present. Objectively speaking, even doubling is too small.Projects are becoming more and more expensive, and the living space of small funds such as tomato is bound to be squeezed. VCs with deep pocket should also work patiently and energetically and invest more. Of course, the scale should follow.So you see, tomato has also actively conveyed the fund-raising signal to the outside world recently. Last month, there was a report on tomatoes in 36 krypton. The original words said, “next, we plan to raise a US dollar fund and a RMB fund, and the scale will continue to expand”.In fact, if tomato is defined as “small and beautiful”, there is little pressure. After all, its vitality is still improving, and it must have the opportunity to become an important role in the future.But what is the reality? Qing Yong’s slogan is “Sequoia, Hillhouse”. Now, does he have the opportunity to make “Sequoia in the catering industry”?E-commerce has made Sequoia. There are many funds that dream of replicating this success in each subdivision track. In the past few years, I have seen at least a few waves. I hope to become a “Sequoia” for the new third board, a “Sequoia” for hard technology, and a “Sequoia” for S FundBut the fact is that it is not difficult for the new vertical fund to seize the big opportunity.Since the emergence of VC2.0, the competition pattern of the market has changed radically in just 5 or 6 years. Do vertical funds have industrial barriers? Yes, what we can do is “earlier” and “faster”. However, once put in front of scale, both competitive advantage and rising space are narrowed.Looking back at the tomato, taking root in catering, and making achievements, it is definitely worth a visit, but the situation is also very realistic. Qing Yong should hurry to seize the initiative – competing with people on one side and with time on the other, and competing with the market of catering track and capital market.Reprint authorization and media business cooperation: Amy (wechat: 13701559246); join the community: Cherry (micro signal: 15240428449).
