Hero Entertainment CEO Ying Shuling: How I influenced Xu Xiaoping and Wang Sicong

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In the history of China's Internet development, few companies have grown as fast as Hero Entertainment. From listing on the New Third Board in June this year through a backdoor listing of Celsus to the investment of Proust Capital under "national husband" Wang Sicong, Hero Entertainment's valuation has reached nearly 10 billion.

The company has a strong team of investors, including Sequoia Capital Global Managing Partner Neil Shen, China Renaissance Capital founder Bao Fan (Weibo), and Zhen Fund founder Xu Xiaoping, who have joined the Hero Entertainment board of directors and supervisory board.

Just recently, Hero Entertainment also issued an announcement: Wang Sicong and Ran Xi were added as supervisors of Hero Entertainment. Among them, Wang Sicong is a shareholder of Wanda Group, and Ran Xi in the supplementary list is the CP of "Crossfire" R&D and the founder of Changyou Cloud.

Hero Entertainment has also built an excellent management team. Its CEO is Ying Shuling, the former COO of China Mobile Games, CFO Huang Shengli (Weibo) is the former managing director of China Renaissance Capital, and CIO Wu Dan was formerly the vice president of Zhen Fund. He has invested in popular games such as "Crossfire" and "MT Gaiden".

The core of all this is Ying Shuling, who was born in 1981. Ying Shuling was successful at a young age. He dropped out of college to start a business, switched from investment banking to gaming, and was labeled the first person in the distribution platform and the father of mobile e-sports.

Ying Shuling once pursued extreme sports such as skydiving, diving, and sailing. He was also noticed by the Internet circle due to the earthquake in the senior management of China's mobile game industry. He was also controversial because his new company Hero Entertainment, which was founded, was said to have a valuation of over 20 billion yuan.

Huang Shengli recently said in an interview with Tencent Technology that the reason why Ying Shuling was able to leverage so many resources, in addition to the good operating data of Hero Entertainment, is that as the president of China Mobile Games, which was once ranked first in the Chinese mobile game field, such entrepreneurial qualifications are not common.

"Although Ying Shuling is young and not like a big boss in the industry, he has managed a business with hundreds of millions of dollars in monthly turnover. There are not many people in the industry who have his qualifications and start a business again."

In response to the capital market's pursuit, Ying Shuling told Tencent Technology that although China's Internet entrepreneurial environment is impetuous, the fact that cannot be avoided is that the top ten mobile game companies are still very strong. In addition, it is not surprising that the president of a top-ranked company is seeking to start a business.

The board of directors gathered with Chinese VC industry leaders

On July 28 this year, Hero Entertainment held a board meeting, attended by Sequoia Capital founding partner Neil Shen, China Renaissance Capital founder and CEO Bao Fan, Zhen Fund founder Xu Xiaoping, and Zhen Fund founder Wang Qiang.

After the meeting, Ying Shuling also had a private conversation with Xu Xiaoping. One knew games best, and the other knew capital best. The two quickly reached a consensus that whether making games or running funds, human collaboration is the most important. In this regard, there is no difference between games and funds.

Hero Entertainment CEO Ying Shuling: How I influenced Xu Xiaoping and Wang Sicong

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Many VC bosses attended the Hero Entertainment board meeting (Photo courtesy of Tencent Technology)

At that time, pictures of Shen Nanpeng, Bao Fan, Xu Xiaoping and Wang Qiang appearing on the board of directors of Hero Entertainment were widely circulated on WeChat Moments.

Before June 2014, Ying Shuling served as the president of Zhongshouyou. After the senior personnel adjustments of Zhongshouyou in June 2014, Ying Shuling was appointed COO, specializing in the game agency and distribution business with third-party game developers.

To some extent, Ying Shuling encountered "failure" in Zhongshouyou, but he endured it for a year. It was not until around May 2015, when Zhongshouyou announced its privatization, that Ying Shuling re-assembled a team of his own and continued to fight in the mobile game field.

When talking about the details of Shen Nanpeng, Bao Fan and Xu Xiaoping's investment in Hero Entertainment, Ying Shuling said that he received 60 offers from investors right after he left. "I have already built a $1 billion company, and I want to build a $10 billion company after I leave."

Huang Shengli once encouraged Ying Shuling: "Lei Jun (Weibo) was 9 years older than you when he left Kingsoft." What surprised Ying Shuling even more was that when discussing the investment with Sequoia, Shen Nanpeng did not bargain, but directly participated in the investment in Hero Entertainment.

After gaining support from Neil Shen, Fan Bao, and Xiaoping Xu, Hero Entertainment moved quickly and listed on the New Third Board through Celers in mid-June 2015. It was then that Hero Entertainment was officially announced to be established.

When asked why Hero Entertainment was listed on the New Third Board so quickly, Ying Shuling told Tencent Technology that mobile games are capital-intensive products and Hero Entertainment must catch the capital express. He had experienced the listing of Zhongyou Mobile Games, which also accelerated the process of Hero Entertainment's listing on the New Third Board.

Building the management team of Hero Entertainment

Apart from Ying Shuling, strictly speaking, two other management members of Hero Entertainment, Huang Shengli and Wu Dan, both come from capital backgrounds.

Among them, Huang Shengli is the former managing director of Huaxing Capital. He has rich entrepreneurial and management experience. He has helped companies such as Didi, JD.com, Momo, and Kunlun Wanwei raise more than US$800 million in private equity financing, and led the asset restructuring of Seventh Avenue and Yinhan Technology.

CIO Wu Dan was once the vice president of Zhen Fund, and had invested in games such as Shadow Blade, Super Hero, Gunfight, and MT Gaiden on behalf of Zhen Fund. On a larger scale, Huang Shengli and Wu Dan were once Ying Shuling's main rivals.

The reason is that Huang Shengli has been helping Zhongshouyou's main competitors Kunlun Wanwei and Chukong to raise funds, and Zhen Fund is the most successful angel fund in the gaming field, having successfully acquired 7 game products in a row, which directly affected Zhongshouyou's IP operation plan.

Ying Shuling said that he, Huang Shengli and Wu Dan admired each other. While they were competitors, they eventually became friends.

Once, Ying Shuling was interested in "Crossfire" and approached Wu Dan, the investor of "Crossfire", for cooperation, but Ying Shuling was rejected by Wu Dan. But later, "Super Hero" and "Crossfire" invested by Zhen Fund were both handed over to China Mobile Games for agency.

When Ying Shuling started his business, he needed an excellent CFO because of the need for capital operation. Wu Dan introduced Huang Shengli to Ying Shuling. Later, when Huang Shengli joined, Wu Dan began to waver and joined Hero Entertainment after thinking about it all night.

Wu Dan also took Ying Shuling to visit Xu Xiaoping. According to media reports, Ying Shuling told Xu Xiaoping, "I hope you can invest in us, but I hope Wu Dan can join us even more."

Eventually, Wu Dan became the CIO of Hero Entertainment, Xu Xiaoping became the chairman of the board of supervisors, and ZhenFund became a strategic partner of Hero Entertainment. Xu Xiaoping revealed that he originally hoped to invest the entire RMB fund, but in the end only a quarter was given because there were too many people competing for it.

Of course, as a luxury team full of investors, Hero Entertainment is also controversial. The center of the controversy is naturally the rumored valuation of Hero Entertainment of up to 20 billion. With so many investors, Hero Entertainment is also considered to be over-packaged.

Ying Shuling said that the company's valuation is not 20 billion, but 10 billion, and there is a lot of hard work behind Hero Entertainment's success. "Others think we are playing with capital operations, but with so many people playing with capital operations, aren't we the most solid?"

In fact, although Ying Shuling has resigned from Zhongyou Mobile Games, Hero Entertainment is still closely related to Zhongyou Mobile Games. In addition to founding Hero Entertainment, Ying Shuling is currently the CEO of Beijing Excellence Morningstar, a subsidiary of Zhongyou Mobile Games.

On May 20 this year, after announcing that it had received a privatization invitation, Zhongshouyou carried out a strategic reorganization of its subsidiaries and transferred the distribution and operation of its two mobile games, "Crossfire" and "Tiantian Xuanwu", to Beijing Excellence Morningstar controlled by Ying Shuling.

During the same period, Zhongshouyou agreed that if Beijing Excellence Morningstar failed to achieve the established target profits: 45 million in 2015, 80 million in 2016 and 107 million in 2017, Tianjin Excellence must return up to 25% of Beijing Excellence Morningstar’s equity to Chengdu Zhuoxing free of charge.

Ying Shuling did not mention much about the cooperation with Zhongyou Mobile Games, only saying that Hero Entertainment bought out some games from Zhongyou Mobile Games.