Listen to this articleChinese unicorn WiFi Master Key spent only two years to achieve a billion-dollar valuation earlier this year. Our interview below is with one of the richest Chinese self-made internet Billionaires Mr. Chen Danian, Founder and CEO of WiFi Master Key. WiFi Master Key is helping people around the world to connect to shared WiFi hotspots. WiFi Master Key has already connected over 700 Million users, it has 360 Million monthly active users, and makes an average of over 40 Million connections daily.
Q: After closing a $52 million Series A funding, WiFi Master Key becomes China’s newest unicorn, tell us something more about the company?
A: As you may know, WiFi Master Key spent only two years to achieve a billion-dollar valuation earlier this year, after closing a $52 million Series A funding. The valuation, the loan amount and how quickly it was all achieved broke all kinds of record among Chinese Internet firms at a comparable funding stage and made the company a unicorn.
The success was not an accident, but a sign of us being deeply and emotionally attached to the mobile Internet industry. Seventeen years ago, it was considered a luxury to get on the Internet, and for someone like me who was born in a rural village in China, this was especially difficult. But with my parents’ understanding and strong support, I learnt about the Internet, and it was a turning point in my life. I was obsessed with developing freeware once, and the first freeware I made was ENCounter, which was named one of the top ten freeware by Icpcw.com, an influential Chinese technology news portal. I went on to found Shanda Group at the age of 21 and brought on the online game frenzy in China before becoming one of China’s top 10 richest people when I was 27.
In my opinion, getting online is a basic human right, and only by getting online can people be given an equal opportunity to discover what life has in store for them and to realize their creative dreams. I hope to build an innovative online sharing platform, where you can connect to the world, and the world can also connect to you. Thanks to the shared and growing network, more and more people’s destiny will change; they will find their own opportunities through the connections.
That is why WiFi Master Key counts getting more people online easily anytime, anywhere in the world as its goal.
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Q: What is WiFi Master Key and how does it work?
A: WiFi Master Key is a proponent of the sharing economy. Users share their WiFi hotspots on the platform, so users can find the available hotspots nearby and access the shared hotspots for free. Besides, the app also has a built-in power saver, traffic tracker, signal detector and tethering features, making it a handy WiFi connection management tool for smartphone users. It is available for Android and iOS devices.
To improve user experience, WiFi Master Key has invested extensively in finding ways to create a greater network of supplementary hotspots for even better results. Currently, the app’s hotspots are mainly hosted by companies, Internet service providers or governments as part of their smart city campaigns.
Q: With 360 million monthly active users WiFi Master Key becomes China’s leading mobile WiFi utility app, what are your plans for global expansion?
A: In May this year, WiFi Master Key acquired the top-level domain name, wifi.com, and set up an overseas headquarter in Singapore to prepare for its global operations. The company plans to gain a foothold in Singapore and expand into Southeast Asia, and gradually to the other parts of the world. Most importantly, we would like to continue deriving in-depth understanding of the individual markets, listening to the ever-growing feedbacks to keep refining our product, hence to provide better services to our users.
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Q: This May, you initiated an equity crowdfunding and the total subscription amount was close to $1.2 billion; tell us something about your crowdfunding campaign?
A: The round of equity crowdfunding was a manifestation of the success of sharing economy. WiFi Master Key not only connects those who need wireless Internet and those who share their connections, but also investors and entrepreneurs. The great success of the crowdfunding was testament to that.
On May 29, the company initiated an equity crowdfunding project on crowdfunding portal Choudao.com. The plan was to raise 32.5 million yuan from 25 investors to buy 0.5 percent of the company’s stake. Within four days, the subscription amount reached 7.2 billion yuan (US$1.1 billion), rendering it oversubscribed by 221 times. In a big to cater to the enthusiasm, WiFi Master Key sold another 0.5 percent of its stake to another 25 investors, so that eventually 1 percent of the company’s stake was crowdfunded.
The campaign ended on June 5 and closed with an unprecedented total subscription amount of CNY 7.7 billion (US$1.2 billion). A total of 5,934 applications were made. In the end, the company sealed 50 investment agreements in the 65 million yuan loan deal. It was oversubscribed by 237 times, breaking the record of both subscription and over-subscription amount in China’s crowdfunding history. This is almost equivalent with the amount of an average China’s A-share IPO.
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Q: What can we expect from WiFi Master Key in next six months?
A: It is key for WiFi Master Key now to continue improving user experience, so that we can build on the recent surge of popularity in Southeast Asia and many other places.
In the past two months, WiFi Master Key has become Google Play’s top tool app in 9 countries or regions, including most recently Russia, Algeria, Serbia, Azerbaijan, and Bulgaria. It is also the top tool app in Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia.
We also take it upon ourselves to be one of the frontrunning proponents of the “sharing economy” because it is something we believe will help more people get shared resources, and help make the world a better place.
The company, launched in September 2012, has seen very fast growth. As of October 2015, WiFi Master Key has connected a total of 700 million users, 360 million monthly active users, and made an average of over 40 million connections daily.
We have grown rapidly to become China’s leading mobile WiFi utility app, joining the likes of instant messaging app giants QQ and WeChat as one of the top three mobile Internet software in China, and also the top mobile tool app.
WiFi Master Key adopts an advertising business model now, but in the future, online-to-offline services and big data will also be important sources of revenue. The app’s O2O model strategy has been proven successful this year, and has channeled much traffic to many of our clients that need a handy and safe network when they provide offline services. In the future, we will dig deep into our sizable data pool to provide more accurate mobile Internet targeting services to our users.
Q: What does WiFi Master Key think of the prospects of sharing economy?
A: The sharing economy is based on the Internet, yet the influence it has brought has far exceeded the scope of the Internet. It has presented to us a new way of thinking: the use of idle resources to replace traditional manufacturing power. Since it is idle, it is affordable. Since some resources is always idle, much less has to be manufactured, thus the entire system is more environmentally friendly. We say “customer is king” in the traditional economy, but in sharing economy customers can also provide services to others. That is why there are predictions that over 80 percent of manufacturing will be replaced by sharing economy sometime in the future.
WiFi Master Key has always endeavored to let more people gain access to the Internet for free by way of fostering a sharing community. We believe that those who have connected to one of our shared hotspots can feel the love and warmth of sharing.
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