TechBuzz China is back from China! We are happy to say that the week of back-to-back meetings we had in our first-ever Investor Trip was a great success. We were able to visit a host of companies we’ve previously covered on the podcast, like Ximalaya, Xiaohongshu, Ruhan, Xiaomi, China Renaissance, Tiger Brokers, and more, as well as new ones such as Ctrip, Mogujie, Qutoutiao, and Bilibili, which we hope to talk about in more detail soon. Thank you to everyone who hosted us, and a special thanks ...
Oct 25, 2019•34 min
TechBuzz China is going to China! As part of our inaugural invite-only TechBuzz China Investor Trip for public market investors taking place right after Golden Week, we will be hosting a live meetup in Beijing’s Sanlitun at Taco Bar on Tuesday, October 8, and in Shanghai at Hotel Indigo on Thursday, October 10. Both will begin at 8:30 p.m. If you are in either of those cities, do come out and have a beer on us! Episode 53 of TechBuzz China is about NetEase. Listen to learn about the company’s fo...
Oct 04, 2019•32 min
TechBuzz China is going to China! As part of our inaugural invite-only TechBuzz China Investor Trip for public market investors taking place right after Golden Week, we will be hosting live meetups. These will take place in Beijing’s Sanlitun after dinner on Tuesday, October 8, and in Shanghai after dinner on Thursday, October 10. If you are in either of those cities, do come out and have a beer on us! Check our Twitter ( @techbuzzchina ) for updates on the exact locations and times. Episode 52 ...
Sep 20, 2019•35 min
Episode 51 of TechBuzz China is our second consecutive show that is in a unique format. It features a replay of TechBuzz co-host Rui Ma’s recorded call on SupChina Access , which was originally aired live on July 23. The conversation is moderated by Jeremy Goldkorn, editor-in-chief of SupChina. As longtime listeners know, we are proudly one of the most long-standing podcasts within SupChina’s Sinica Podcast Network. In this episode, Jeremy prompts Rui to speak on some of the hottest topics, tren...
Aug 30, 2019•52 min
Episode 50 of TechBuzz China is unique: it’s our first live recording! It features co-host Rui Ma in conversation with author and journalist Matt Sheehan, currently a fellow based at the Paulson Institute’s MacroPolo think tank. It was recorded at the August 13 launch of Matt’s new book , The Transpacific Experiment: How China and California Collaborate and Compete for Our Future . As our co-hosts have commented on previous episodes, we respect Matt as one of the smartest and most thoughtful voi...
Aug 16, 2019•35 min
In episode 49 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma continue their exploration of the converging trends between the U.S. and China’s ecommerce sectors, this week covering the topic of the resale market for sneakers and streetwear. Notably, entrepreneurs in the U.S. and in China, such as the founders of smash-hit sneaker site Pozion, seem to have discovered this space at roughly the same time. Perhaps, our co-hosts muse, due to the tech-savvy nature of the Gen-Z demographic, differe...
Aug 02, 2019•35 min
In episode 48 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma take a look at the direct-to-consumer, or D2C, brands in China. Specifically, they highlight one of the early winners of the business model: Three Squirrels, a Chinese internet snack brand that started off with selling nuts and went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange last week with a market cap of close to $2 billion. Though the company has not been covered much in English, it has been all the buzz in China’s tech community, an...
Jul 20, 2019•34 min
In episode 47 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma dive into a topic they have been wanting to cover for a while now: Chinese educational technology (edtech). Specifically, they focus on VIPKid, a company that has an incredible number of competitors but is by far the largest in terms of scale for its cross-border model of English-language instruction. Notably, 8 of the 12 startup unicorns categorized as edtech by CBInsights are from China — and this does not include the number of ...
Jun 21, 2019•35 min
In episode 46 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma take a look at the market for China’s overseas online brokerages, which help Chinese people to invest in securities outside of mainland China. Of note, two Chinese fintech startups, Futu (富途 fù tú, or “path to riches”) and Tiger Brokers, went IPO in quick succession in March. This episode tells the stories of Futu and Tiger against a backdrop of relative volatility for U.S.-listed Chinese equities, as compared with their NASDAQ an...
Jun 07, 2019•35 min
In episode 45 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the rise of what has been touted as “the next big trend” in China tech: electronic cigarettes. Despite being criticized as a trap for entrepreneurs and investors alike, as well as concerns around ethical considerations, a large number of high-profile hardware entrepreneurs and consumer internet executives in China have jumped into the fray. Although China has yet to birth a decacorn in this sector like U.S.-based Juul, ...
May 24, 2019•33 min
In episode 44 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about So-Young, an internet company that markets and facilitates plastic surgery and other medical cosmetic procedures to Chinese customers. The six-year-old company has a stated mission of bringing “health and beauty” to everyone, and its stock priced at $13.80 per American depositary share (ADS) last week but is now trading at about $20. Prior to listing, So-Young had raised over $250 million in venture capital funding, inc...
May 10, 2019•33 min
In Episode 43 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma dive into the world of gaming live streaming, which is a pretty big industry in China. Specifically, our co-hosts focus primarily on two companies, Douyu and Panda.TV. The former has just filed to go public on the NYSE at a valuation of $500 million, and the latter officially shut down on March 30 of this year. Notably, these and several other players mentioned in today’s episode have all received Tencent investment at one point o...
Apr 26, 2019•33 min
In Episode 42 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma turn their attention to the developer-led movement 996.icu, one of the few viral China tech topics in the past few months that has made it to Western media in real time and gotten a good bit of coverage. The movement is so named because there is a popular saying that to work “996,” or at least 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — as many tech sector employees do in China — is to end up in the ICU. Listeners will also hear from Arma...
Apr 12, 2019•33 min
In Episode 41 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Ruhnn (RUHN), a relatively small yet significant company that filed for IPO a few weeks ago in the U.S. on the Nasdaq. Ruhnn has become the clear leader in China’s fast-growing influencer marketing sector, an area in which — our co-hosts agree — China should be considered world-leading. Lauren Hallanan, a Chinese social media marketing expert focusing on influencer marketing, and a former livestreamer in China with over...
Apr 02, 2019•35 min
In Episode 40 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the new “Technology Innovation Board” on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, which formally announced its first set of rules last week. Rui and Ying-Ying explain that given its recent trajectory, this registration-based NASDAQ-style board could be launched in a few months, if not weeks — much more quickly than skeptics have assumed. With this news as the backdrop, this week’s episode serves as a quick primer into the differenc...
Mar 15, 2019•30 min
Episode 39 of TechBuzz China is on a topic of special interest to our co-hosts, Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma: podcasting in China! It was sparked by two recent pieces of news within the podcasting industry. The first was the acquisition of Gimlet Media, a podcasting network, by the newly IPOed music-streaming service Spotify for $200 million; the second was the $100 million raised by the podcasting platform Himalaya. In fact, Himalaya’s main investor, China’s Ximalaya FM, boasts 23 million daily acti...
Feb 26, 2019•35 min
In episode 38 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma dive into this year’s Battle of the Red Packets. The name refers to the custom of money-giving, which is an important part of the Chinese New Year experience. It has also been taken over by Chinese internet companies as one of their main user acquisition events of the year. Rui and Ying-Ying begin by sharing the history of hongbao, or “red packet.” In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the traditional gift was simply a stack of coins ti...
Feb 19, 2019•35 min
In episode 37 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma dive into the world of WeChat Mini Programs. Arguably some of the biggest innovations to come out of the Chinese internet, Mini Programs have no real Western equivalent. Ever since it was launched three years ago on January 9, 2016, the Mini Programs function, which is still in an experimental stage, has been touted as a key direction for WeChat. Rui and Ying-Ying begin by exploring the origin story of Mini Programs. They explain ...
Feb 01, 2019•30 min
In episode 36 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the dirty, risky, and more unseemly aspects of China tech, primarily focused on two stories that grabbed headlines recently: the “hack” at the ecommerce company Pinduoduo, and the corruption scandal at the drone designer DJI. Although the incidents differ greatly from each other, they have come on each other’s heels, so our co-hosts decided to bundle them together for an episode, reflecting what’s buzzing within the tec...
Jan 25, 2019•22 min
In episode 35 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about competitors to the reigning Chinese social media champion, WeChat. Specifically, they focus on three apps that all decided to launch on Tuesday, January 15, 2019, two weeks before Chinese New Year: Bytedance’s Duoshan, Wang Xin’s self-proclaimed “anti-WeChat” Toilet, and Bullet Messenger 2.0. Following their releases, WeChat promptly blocked links to all three. Our co-hosts ask: Does WeChat have a reason to be scared? W...
Jan 18, 2019•28 min
In episode 34 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the latest version of WeChat, which first came out on iOS the third week of December 2018, and on Android a few days later. It has been over four years since WeChat released an update this large, and since then, it’s added on over half a billion monthly active users. The latest updates included several widely expected features, namely, enhanced sharing of both video and content, which overlap with Bytedance’s core stren...
Jan 11, 2019•30 min
In episode 33 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Tencent Music (TME), which finally completed its $1.2 billion IPO after a two-month delay due to market volatility. The company rose 9 percent on its first day, but has traded below the initial offering price ever since. This episode covers the business model of TME, its market potential, and our co-hosts’ thoughts on its future outlook. Though often compared with Spotify, to what extent are these two companies truly si...
Dec 26, 2018•25 min
In episode 32 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Luckin Coffee, the hybrid online-offline coffee chain unicorn startup that’s turning heads in China with its rapid expansion and innovative business model. In fact, immediately after we completed recording this episode, news broke that the year-old company has raised another $200 million in fresh funding, upping its valuation to $2.2 billion. Throughout Luckin’s existence, Western media has had a habit of comparing Luck...
Dec 12, 2018•32 min
In episode 31 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Xiaohongshu, also known as RED, which had received a $300 million investment from Alibaba. Though the money was injected in June, the two companies have recently announced an additional cooperation that links them at the product level — an integration with Alibaba’s Taobao. What is the significance of these developments, and what is the story of Xiaohongshu? Listeners also hear from Elijah Whaley, the CMO of the Chinese...
Dec 05, 2018•30 min
In episode 30 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Renren Inc., the closest Chinese analogue to Facebook. The company — which once had a near-monopoly on the Chinese social networking space, and had raised $800 million in its 2011 IPO — recently announced that it would sell all of its Renren.com social networking assets to Beijing Infinities Technology, a holding company, for a mere $20 million in cash and $40 million worth of stock. This episode explores the question: ...
Nov 21, 2018•22 min
In episode 29 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about China’s version of “Black Friday,” the biggest ecommerce shopping festival of the year which Alibaba invented out of thin air in 2008 and now falls yearly on November 11. Rui and Ying-Ying delve into the history behind the “Double 11 Shopping Festival,” as Chinese media title it. How did it get started? Why does it have such mindshare in the world of China’s internet? How did it go this year? After reviewing the evidenc...
Nov 16, 2018•25 min
In episode 28 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the Chinese AI company that recently toppled Uber to become the highest-valued startup in the world: Bytedance. Having just closed on a $3 billion funding round led by SoftBank, the company is currently valued at $75 billion. Though our co-hosts have mentioned Bytedance across several previous episodes, including a focus on the company’s war with Tencent in episode 9, today’s episode is the first to delve into its found...
Nov 07, 2018•36 min
In Episode 27 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma discuss the latest scandal to come out of the Chinese internet — fake reviews on one of China’s leading travel websites, Mafengwo. Mafengwo had $1.5 billion in sales last year, 63k transactions, and over 100 million monthly active users. It’s already backed by some of the best investors in the business, including Temasek, Hillhouse, General Atlantic, and Capital Today, and in August, it was leaked that it was in the middle of rais...
Oct 31, 2018•24 min
In episode 26 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma discuss Koubei, rounding out a two-part deep-dive into the local services space in China. An Alibaba subsidiary, Koubei recently merged with ele.me, another Alibaba-owned (via acquisition) entity which was covered in episode 25 last week. Listeners will also hear from Ed Sander of ChinaTalk, a China trip leader and prolific writer on the topic of ecommerce and China. Rui and Ying-Ying tell the story of Koubei. Though the brand was...
Oct 23, 2018•27 min
In episode 25 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Alibaba’s recent moves to firm up its strategy around local services, putting pressure on Meituan-Dianping to defend itself. This war of “O2O,” or online-to-offline, is shaping up to be intense, with the latest battle round seeing the merger between food delivery rival ele.me (which Alibaba acquired for $9.5 billion in April) and Alibaba’s new retail subsidiary, Koubei. This episode of TechBuzz is the first in a series ...
Oct 17, 2018•27 min
