Tencent's $350 million investment in Kuaishou is the beginning of the post-BAT era

On March 23, the popular short video and live streaming platform Kuaishou announced that it had completed a new round of financing of US$350 million. The financing was led by Tencent, and Kuaishou did not disclose whether old shareholders represented by Baidu followed suit. In short, Tencent's heavy investment in Kuaishou is bound to establish its prestige in the short video field.

It is not easy to conquer a kingdom, but it is even harder to keep it.

Ma Huateng has repeatedly said on different occasions that "there should be a sense of crisis". He once said, "After being in this industry for a long time, I am out of touch with reality and don't know what young people like now. This is what I think is the most terrible. My biggest worry when I wake up every morning is that I don't understand what the mainstream Internet users will do in the future." In 2013, Ma Huateng said during a discussion at a summit: "I am increasingly unable to understand what young people like on the Internet. This is my biggest worry." As Ma Huateng said, Tencent as a whole has not been able to make great progress in the field of short videos. However, the Internet is so magical that capital can make up for the lack of time to a certain extent. Specifically, it can be seen from the team that Kuaishou took this time.

In the past, Chinese entrepreneurs’ biggest concern was whether China’s three largest Internet companies, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT for short), would copy them.

Now, the topic has evolved into whether BAT will invest in or even acquire them. In the past, when they were "copied", entrepreneurs still had the opportunity to become the next BAT-level existence - the premise is to overcome the attention of BAT; in the current situation, Chinese entrepreneurs must face the reality that if they cannot enter the BAT (be invested or acquired), it often means decline or even death.

This reality and strategic choice will have a profound impact on the future of China's Internet: it will become more difficult to try to subvert BAT, which already controls the entire Chinese Internet landscape.

In the post-BAT era, mergers and acquisitions are accelerating and the strong are getting stronger

Looking at the BAT giants, they have long given up the horizontal development of their businesses and have chosen to develop vertically based on their own "forte". In areas that they are not familiar with or are not good at, they just need to find a strong player in this field and buy it.

According to the statistics of Unicorn Club, there were 71 companies with a valuation of more than 1 billion US dollars in 2016, with an overall valuation of 351.6 billion US dollars and an average valuation of 4.95 billion US dollars. It is worth noting that among all 71 unicorns, 65% of them have direct or indirect equity relations with BAT, with an overall total valuation of 291.7 billion US dollars, accounting for 83% of the valuation of all unicorn companies; especially among the top 10 unicorn companies, except for DJI Technology, the other 9 companies are related to BAT; and among the top 20 unicorns, 80% of them are linked to BAT.

In fact, the current entrepreneurial situation seems to be inseparable from the phrase "life and death by BAT". Although in recent years everyone has fully recognized the strength of BAT and is full of expectations for the development of mass entrepreneurship and innovation, BAT is indeed a mountain, and their strength has unknowingly far exceeded everyone's imagination.

In summary, with the tightening of the capital market and the decline of the O2O craze in recent years, it also marks the rapid shrinkage of the connection dividend. Behind the dazzling mergers and acquisitions between the leaders in various segments, BAT is always present. In the future, there will only be two types of companies in China's Internet: companies invested by BAT and companies that BAT is unwilling to invest in.

At least in the next 10 years, there will not be another Internet company that can compete with BAT.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.