Jan 31, 2018
GGV Capital’s Hans Tung and Zara Zhang interview Tao Zhang, the founder of Dianping, a lifestyle services company that is often known as “the Yelp of China” but is much more than that. In 2015, Dianping merged with the group buying giant Meituan. The new company, Meituan-Dianping, is now worth $30 billion and is the fourth most valuable startup in the world. Why did Tao want to put restaurant reviews online, before Yelp was even started? How did Tao survive the “thousand-Groupon war” that seized China’s internet scene in the early 2010s? How do you approach a merger between two multi-billion dollar companies? How should startups in China think about strategic investments from giants like Tencent and Alibaba?
Join our listeners' community via WeChat/Slack at
996.ggvc.com/community. GGV Capital also produces a biweekly email
newsletter in English, also called "996," which has a roundup of
the week's most important happenings in tech in China. Subscribe at
996.ggvc.com.
The 996 Podcast is brought to you by GGV Capital, a multi-stage
venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, Shanghai, and
Beijing. We have been partnering with leading technology
entrepreneurs for the past 18 years from seed to pre-IPO. With $3.8
billion in capital under management across eight funds, GGV invests
in globally minded entrepreneurs in consumer internet, e-commerce,
frontier tech, and enterprise. GGV has invested in over 280
companies, with 30 companies valued at over $1 billion. Portfolio
companies include Airbnb, Alibaba, Bytedance (Toutiao), Ctrip, Didi
Chuxing, DOMO, Hashicorp, Hellobike, Houzz, Keep, Musical.ly,
Slack, Square, Wish, Xiaohongshu, YY, and others. Find out more
at ggvc.com.