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Interface News Reporter | Lu Keyan

Interface News Editor | Wen Shuqi

Rumors of the disappearance of Yuan Bingsong, the founder of Lai Dian Technology, have once again dragged this once-star shared power bank company into the spotlight.

According to China Business News, Yuan Bingsong, the founder of Shenzhen Lai Dian Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shenzhen Lai Dian"), lost contact on August 18. Han Bing, the first person to take over Shenzhen Lai Dian, and four other company-related personnel also lost contact with him. However, that evening, Yuan Bingsong posted a message on his WeChat Moments saying: "God is fair, and everything that happens is the best arrangement. Follow your conscience, do things according to your heart, don't do evil, and God will bless you!"

The report said that the reason Yuan and Han lost contact may be related to the loss of state-owned assets during their cooperation with Pujiang Lai Dian, and they were held accountable by the legal team hired by the local state-owned assets, but it could not be confirmed whether the two were controlled by the relevant departments. Jiemian News sought confirmation from the relevant person in charge of Lai Dian Technology, but no response was received before press time.

In fact, due to poor operation and management of Lai Dian Technology and unclear equity distribution, Yuan Bingcong gave up all his shares in Lai Dian Technology as early as 2021. In Yuan Bingcong's own words, he was "kicked out by other shareholders." In October 2022, he co-founded Wukong Fast Charge with Zhou Jia, the former founder of 8848 Mobile and co-founder of Xiaoguan Tea, and re-entered the shared power bank industry.

After the rumors of his loss of contact were exposed, the old dispute between Yuan Bingcong and Lai Dian Technology resurfaced. The former "big brother" of the shared power bank industry is now mired in disputes.

Yuan Bingcong founded Shenzhen Lai Dian Technology Co., Ltd. in 2014 and calls himself the pioneer of the shared power bank industry. Riding on the rapid development of mobile Internet and the increasing power shortage of smartphones, the shared charging model advocated by Lai Dian Technology quickly attracted a number of star capitals to increase investment.

In an interview with "China Entrepreneur Magazine" in 2023, Yuan Bingcong mentioned that after getting the money, Lai Dian Technology began to recruit frantically. In 2019, the company's employees increased from more than 800 to more than 3,000, and it fell into a situation of organizational management chaos. The entry of multiple capitals also led to a mess of the company's internal equity management.

The most important capital move of Lai Dian Technology was the introduction of state-owned capital in 2020. At the end of that year, the 100% equity holder of Lai Dian Technology was changed to Pujiang Lai Dian Zhengqi Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Pujiang Lai Dian"). The company's limited partners (investors, LP) and general partners (managers, GP) are all state-owned capital, and the state-owned assets of Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province are the main investor.

At that time, Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province was promoting investment promotion and project breakthroughs, and for the first time tried to use the "fund + equity + project" model to attract investment, that is, the state-owned investor established a partnership with the GP in the form of LP, and then established a limited liability company under the partnership to purchase the equity of the project company. It was in this way that Lai Dian Technology became a state-owned enterprise.

But this model was soon challenged. LPs usually do not participate in daily operations, but authorize GPs to be responsible for daily management and decision-making, which leads to unclear division of shareholder rights and responsibilities.

"I was originally a factory worker who transitioned to a new job, and I myself didn't understand capital. At the time, the company's capital management and equity management were all in chaos. In addition, the epidemic put the industry on an emergency brake, and the company was completely out of control," said Yuan Bingcong in the above interview.

With the entry of Monster Power, Meituan and other manufacturers, as well as the merger of Jiedian and Soudian, Laidian Technology's market share has been further squeezed. Internal chaos and external competition have made Laidian almost powerless. According to a report released by Fastdata, a data monitoring agency, in April 2023, the top four in China's shared power bank industry are Monster, Zhumang (Jiedian + Soudian), Xiaodian and Meituan. Laidian Technology is listed as "others", and the market share of "others" does not exceed 8%.

Tianyancha APP shows that since 2020, Laidian Technology has frequently faced legal proceedings due to multiple contract disputes and has been listed as the person subject to execution many times. Specific disputes include entrustment contracts, joint venture agreements, labor contracts, and sales contracts. The plaintiffs in the lawsuits include early agents, co-founders, suppliers, and company employees.

Due to a large number of lawsuits, the accounts of Shenzhen Lai Dian and Pujiang Lai Dian were frozen by the bank. In 2022, the recipient of Lai Dian power bank transactions changed from Pujiang Lai Dian to Shenzhen Lai Dian Ge Information Technology Co., Ltd., the legal representative of which is Han Bing, and is 100% controlled by Laidian Hong Kong Limited, a company registered in Hong Kong. According to Yicai.com, the actual controller of the company is Yuan Bingcong.

However, public information shows that Yuan Bingcong left Lai Dian Technology in 2021, but the recipient of the transaction for Lai Dian Technology, which has been completely nationalized, is an overseas company actually controlled by Yuan Bingcong. This is also the source of outside suspicion about the "loss of state-owned assets."

Today, Lai Dian Technology is still in a quagmire. On platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Heimao Complaints, many netizens reported that Lai Dian Technology power banks could not be returned, and that the return points shown in many mini-programs had closed down or no longer cooperated with Lai Dian, but the official mini-programs had not been updated.

Jiemian News contacted an employee in Shenzhen who was responsible for the maintenance of Lai Dian's shared power bank equipment. He said that he had resigned. A large number of employees in Lai Dian's operation and maintenance and BD teams had resigned, and related work had been repeatedly shelved and even stagnated in many regions. Jiemian News visited the office address shown on Lai Dian Technology's official website and found that the company had moved out of here.

In fact, the entire shared power bank industry is not doing well. According to data released by iResearch in 2023, Monster Charging ranks first with a market share of nearly 30%, but the company is also facing difficulties: recently, agents in many places are jointly suing Monster Charging, claiming that they have been defrauded by the company's sales staff. After several agents have invested millions of yuan in Monster Charging equipment and after-sales installation services, the installation was unfinished, resulting in large-scale disconnection of equipment and serious losses in the initial investment.

The dispute between platforms and agents has always been a difficult problem in this industry. Platforms need to continuously expand franchisees to increase the number of outlets, franchisees are eager for higher profit rebates, and platforms need more impressive performance, but users have already resisted the rising prices of power bank rentals.

When capital has lost interest in this business, the only way to promote the healthy development of the industry is to have a more reasonable business model. This is a common issue for all shared power bank companies.