gave up and was listed on the US stock market, Soul, a social platform popular among Generation Z, moved to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and restarted its IPO.
According to Hong Kong Stock Exchange document information, on June 30, Soulgate, a social platform Soul software developer, submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with BofA SECURITIES and CICC as its joint sponsors. The prospectus shows that Tencent is Soul’s largest institutional shareholder, holding 49.9% of the shares and 25.7% of the company’s voting rights; Soul founder Zhang Lu holds 32% of the shares and has 65% of the voting rights. In addition, , Mihayou , Yuansheng Capital, Wuyuan Capital, GGV, etc. also hold shares.
Public information shows that Soul was established in Shanghai in June 2015, and the Soul App was officially launched in November 2015. It is a social platform for Generation Z that builds relationships based on interest maps and uses gamification to design products.
Like other Internet companies seeking to go public in the past two years, Soul's road to listing has also been full of twists and turns.
On May 11, 2021, Soul submitted a prospectus to the SEC and applied to be listed on Nasdaq under the trading code SSR. Subsequently, on June 18, Soul updated its prospectus document and determined the issuance price range to be US$13 to US$15. But on June 23, five hours before the subscription channel closed, Soul made a temporary decision to suspend listing, saying that "the company received very good market feedback after updating the pricing range, but because the company has other capital Due to operational considerations, it decided to suspend the IPO process first. Its major shareholder Tencent also supported this decision. On June 10 this year, Soul stated in a document submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the company decided to withdraw F. -1 registration statement document, no longer issuance of securities based on F-1 document, officially terminated the US listing process.
"The restart of Soul's IPO may have something to do with the improvement of the current market conditions." Du Xin, founder of Nidu Capital, Soul's angel investor, told the financial industry.
Since July last year, as relevant national departments have implemented network security reviews on many Internet companies, many platform-based Internet companies have successively announced the suspension/stop of IPOs in the United States. Now, after nearly a year of network security review, on June 29, Internet platforms such as BOSS, , and Manbang announced the resumption of new user registration. This also indicates that the market situation has improved, and Soul has waited for a good time to restart its IPO.
Du Xin believes, "From the perspective of the landing places for Soul and such products, although the Hong Kong market is not as good as the US market, it is indeed the only choice at present. In addition, Tencent is also listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the Hong Kong market is very interested in web3, yuan New trends such as the universe, and the nature of products such as community social products have a certain degree of understanding and acceptance."
"At the same time, restarting the IPO also reflects Soul's confidence that it can be accepted by the market and successfully complete the IPO. This confidence comes from the increasing maturity of its own App business development on the one hand, and also from Soul's success in the past year. Here, we are fully prepared in terms of how to deal with capital markets and government regulations," Du Xin further analyzed.
-year revenue is 1.28 billion, a year-on-year increase of 157.3%
Judging from the data in the prospectus, Soul’s business growth performance over the past year is indeed remarkable.
is first of all a rapidly growing user base. In 2020, Soul's MAU (monthly active users) increased by 80.7% year-on-year, and in 2021, it increased by 51.6% year-on-year to 31.6 million. DAU (daily active users) increased 81% year-on-year in 2020 and 55.8% year-on-year in 2021 to 9.3 million.
With the rapid growth of users, Soul’s revenue scale is also constantly increasing. The prospectus shows that Soul's revenue in 2019, 2020 and 2021 will be 70.707 million yuan, 498 million yuan and 1.281 billion yuan respectively. Among them, the revenue in 2021 increased by 157.3% compared with the same period last year; the gross profit margin is also It has increased year by year, reaching 48.6%, 79.9% and 85.2% respectively in the past three years.
It is worth mentioning that in 2021, 74.9% of Soul’s monthly active users are Generation Z. Internet analyst Ding Daoshi told the financial industry: "Soul has a great influence among young people, especially the post-2000s, so there is no problem fundamentally.Commercialization can be explored through four aspects: advertising, games, e-commerce, and content payment. As long as there are a large number of young people, it is not difficult to make money. "
At present, Soul's revenue sources are value-added services and advertising services. Value-added services mainly include the sale of virtual items and membership subscription services as well as other limited edition features. In 2021, Soul's value-added service revenue was 1.202 billion yuan, accounting for 10% of total revenue. 93.9%. In 2020, Soul began to monetize through advertising business. In 2020 and 2021, Soul's advertising revenue was 12.766 million yuan and 77.864 million yuan, accounting for 6.1% of the total revenue.
However, it should be noted. Yes, while revenue is growing rapidly, Soul's losses are also increasing year after year. From 2019 to 2021, Soul's net losses were 353.4 million yuan, 579.1 million yuan, and 1.3244 billion yuan respectively; the adjusted net losses were 292.3 million yuan, 465.8 million yuan, and 998.7 million yuan respectively. The reason for
’s loss is related to Soul’s high sales and marketing expenses. From 2019 to 2021, Soul’s marketing expenses were 200 million, 620 million, and 1.51 billion yuan respectively. However, marketing expenses accounted for a positive proportion of the company’s revenue. Showing a downward trend year by year, Soul said in response to this that with the substantial increase in revenue and benefiting from the economies of scale of the platform, the company's sales and marketing expenses, technology and development expenses, and administrative expenses have continued to decline as a percentage of revenue.
Transformation into the Social Metaverse. Tencent and miHoYo are major shareholders.
The prospectus shows that the net proceeds from Soul’s IPO will be mainly used to improve and upgrade proprietary technology, improve data analysis capabilities, and develop the social metaverse; further expand the user base, and Strengthen the brand to drive sustainable and high-quality user growth; develop innovative products and features to attract users and enhance monetization potential; and be used for working capital and general corporate purposes.
At the beginning of last year, before the concept of the Metaverse was clearly defined, Soul. It was the first in the industry to propose the concept of building a social metaverse, emphasizing through Weibo: "Soul's positioning is not a dating software, but a social metaverse for GenZ with Soul as the link. "
Ding Daoshi said: "Soul's characteristics of not looking at face, relying on interest maps and returning them immediately are very metaverse, so his transformation has also received a lot of support. The transformation of the metaverse has allowed this company to tear off about X Tag of. "
At the same time, Soul is also building a social metaverse by continuously investing in technology and development work. It is understood that in 2021, Soul's technology and development expenses have accounted for 32.4% of revenue. Among them, Soul's 3D avatar technology has a significant impact on Souler Currently, Soul App has developed 3D face pinching and a personalized mall that can be used to purchase pinched face avatars based on 3D Avatar, and 3D avatar has been widely used in Soul’s main products “Discovery” and “Discovery”. "Voice Matching", "Video Matching", "Soul Camera", "Moment Square", "Private Message" and other sections.
Before submitting the prospectus , Soul conducted a total of 5 rounds of fundraising. Behind the scenes There are many star shareholders. Among them, Tencent holds the highest proportion of shares, reaching 49.9%, which shows that it has once again invested heavily in Metaverse Quanzhen Internet after investing in Epic and Roblox. Tencent’s understanding of social products over the years has determined that it is definitely not willing to miss Soul. In addition, in a sense, Soul's ecology is more similar to the logic and characteristics of Tencent QQ, and even has differentiated competitiveness. I believe this is one of the reasons for Tencent's heavy position. "
In addition, miHoYo holds 5.47% of the shares, and investing in Soul is also seen as one of MiHoYo's plans to strengthen its strategic territory in the metaverse.
With the craze of the metaverse, more and more people Internet companies have begun to sail the social ship to the metaverse field. Ding Daoshi said: "Although most of the metaverse is still in the concept and hype stage, it is important for the capital market to seize this pit first. There are always some upsides. On the basis of chasing this "pseudo-concept", many practical technologies will evolve and catalyze the accelerated implementation of these practical technologies. For example, the advancement of digital human technology is inseparable from the forced development of the Metaverse; for example, the various upgraded VR equipment and services are also products catalyzed by the Metaverse."The
community social product has always been described as the crown jewel. It seems to be a simple product, but in fact it is the most difficult to make. Once successful, it will become the core source of traffic, so many large manufacturers are unwilling to give up. One of the businesses. If Soul can be successfully listed this time, it may also bring a certain significance to the long-dormant community social field.
This article comes from the financial industry
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