The Rise of Pinduoduo and Social Commerce with Nicolas du Cray

本期播客我们采访拼多多早期投资人Nicolas du Cray分享其投资拼多多的理由以及其对拼多多商业模式的理解和评价。You must have heard of the Chinese social commerce legend Pinduoduo, the fastest-growing mobile shopping platform featuring “team purchase” and social sharing function in China which became a $23 billion empire in under 4 years.For this week’s episode, we invited Nicolas du Cray, an early investor of Pinduoduo and Partner at Cathay Capital - Innovation Fund to talk about Pinduoduo and Social Commerce in China. Nicolas shared how he decided to invest in this company, analyzed the strengths of Pinduoduo, and the challenges of internationalising the social commerce model. He also answered many questions collected from our listeners.Show Notes: 0:00 Welcome Back to China Startup Pulse 1:26 Introducing Nicolas du Cray 2:06 Du Cray’s experience in China 3:16 Shift from Engineering to Venture Capital 3:49 What is Cathay Capital? 4:28 Importance of Venture Capital to Multi-National Corporations 5:22 Cathay Capital’s Investments and Trends in Chinese Innovation 7:26 Value of Foreign Venture Capital to Chinese Startips 8:30 What is Pinduoduo? 9:07 Social Commerce, Pinduoduo, and WeChat ecosystem 11:44 Cathay Capital Innovation and their Investment in Pinduoduo 12:47 Audience Question: History of Pinduoduo and Cathay Capital 15:22 Audience Question: Pinduoduo’s Innovation in E-Commerce 17:54 Growth Trigger of Pinduoduo 19:07 Pinduoduo’s Business Model and Competition in China 20:15 Audience Question: Challenges for Pinduoduo’s model going Abroad 22:05 Future of WeChat’s platform 23:06 Audience Question: Future of Pinduoduo 23:36 Does Nicolas use Pinduoduo?24:31 Signing Out and du Cray’s Contact InformationFeel free to leave a comment and start a conversation with us! If you have an ideal guest whom you would like to listen to, please let us know and we'll do our best to realize it!Many thanks to our host Oscar Ramos and guest Nicolas du Cray, editor David and Geep, organizer Chinaccelerator and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com