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fake orders, illegal fund-raising, overdue payments… the once prosperous online beauty service platform helijia is now facing deep doubts in the face of these accusations.

helijia was founded by serial entrepreneur meng xing in 2014. before founding helijia, meng xing also founded two brands, afu essential oil and diaoye beef brisket. his entrepreneurial experience and marketing methods of creating topics are remarkable.

on september 10, beaver home released a related statement through its official wechat public account, but this did not seem to quell outside doubts.

on the afternoon of september 11, a reporter from the daily economic news came to the beijing office of helijia located on the east fourth ring road in beijing. many craftsmen gathered in the office to collect their debts. regarding the repayment plan mentioned in the statement of helijia, several craftsmen at the scene responded: "we don't accept it."

it is worth mentioning that during the interview, the relationship between helijia and alibaba was mentioned many times by all parties. on the recruitment platform, helijia also attached the news that the company received a strategic investment of several hundred million yuan from alibaba, and claimed to be alibaba's only strategic investment platform in the beauty industry.

however, the reporter found out through checking the industrial and commercial information that neither beijing helijia information technology co., ltd. (beijing helijia) nor hangzhou helijia information technology co., ltd. (hereinafter referred to as hangzhou helijia) has any equity relationship with alibaba.

regarding the current problems of beaver home, on september 12, beaver home ceo liang jiqing (nickname zhongping) replied by email that it is true that alibaba has made a strategic investment in beaver home, but the company is not in a position to disclose the specific equity situation due to alibaba's information disclosure regulations. at the same time, he also introduced the historical account repayment plan and other situations.

photo taken by yang hui, a reporter from the beijing office of helijia

on-site craftsmen "do not accept" the payment plan

beaver home mainly provides beauty services such as manicure, eyelash extension, physical therapy, hand and foot care, daily beauty, medical beauty, etc.

one of the core elements of its business model is to provide a platform for craftsmen, that is, customers place orders and pay on the helijia platform, and the platform assigns orders to craftsmen. after the craftsmen complete the service, helijia pays the craftsmen the proportion of the transaction payment that belongs to them according to the agreed rules, and helijia retains a portion of the platform fee.

recently, helijia has been embroiled in a debt dispute. in may this year, actress michelle ye left a message on helijia’s official weibo account, saying, “why don’t the makeup artists i booked accept my orders? i have asked the platform for a refund many times but it’s not possible.”

in addition, the outside world also questioned that helijia owed artisans service fees, investment principal and rebates, etc. on september 12, liang jiqing replied to the reporter of "daily economic news" by email, saying that helijia's historical account repayment plan before september 1 was to return 10% to 15% every month in the seven months after september, and to ensure that the full amount was returned by the seventh month.

however, liang jiqing did not respond to questions such as the specific amount of service fees owed by beaver house to craftsmen, and how many employees the company currently has.

what is the current situation of beaver home? on the afternoon of september 11, the reporter came to the beaver home beijing office located on the east fourth ring road in beijing. judging from the situation on the scene, it is still working normally. two people who claim to be beaver home staff appeared one after another. however, although it was a weekday afternoon, many workstations were still vacant.

many craftsmen gathered in the beijing office to collect debts, and even suppliers from other places took the high-speed rail to communicate. after the reporter followed the craftsmen into the office area, a person who claimed to be a staff member said that without the permission of the person in charge, the media and outsiders were not allowed to enter the company. the company has only one external contact person, and the contact information is the phone number given in the beaver home statement on september 10.

however, many craftsmen at the scene reported that the above phone number could not be reached. from september 11 to september 12, reporters from the national business daily called the number several times but were unable to get through.

according to the craftsmen on site, the types and scales of the amounts owed to them are different. some are only owed service fees of several tens of thousands of yuan; some are owed large principal and rebates (now known as the golden tripod plan), with the amount ranging from hundreds of thousands of yuan.

there is also a person in charge of a related company who claims to be a customer service supplier and said that his company had signed a contract with the beijing company (beaver home), and that communication with the headquarters (hangzhou) was no longer possible, and the beijing company also had "no way to communicate".

on september 10, beaver home released a statement through its official wechat public account "hangzhou beaver home", which also mentioned the repayment plan liang jiqing replied to, and said that "all the feedback we have received is acceptance." however, several craftsmen at the scene said: "we don't accept it."

on september 10, helijia released a relevant statement through its official wechat public account.

allegations of “illegal fundraising” and “brushing orders”

in addition to overdue payments, the questions that beaver home has faced recently also include "fake orders".

in its statement on september 10, helijia did not deny the allegations of fake orders, and the company admitted that it had discovered orders suspected of fake transactions. however, behind these problems was the company's internal corruption in collusion with external personnel. the company conducted an audit on this, resulting in some real craftsmen's fees not being paid on time.

another issue that helijia has been questioned about is "illegal fundraising." in a statement on september 10, helijia said that "illegal fundraising" was a rumor. the helijia "monthly full winning card plan" involved in this part of the accusation actually refers to the promotional period rewards given to consumers for actual consumption orders, and the "golden tripod plan" mentioned is actually a rebate reward for craftsmen who develop new customers to join the platform. every participant in the plan signed a contract with the company for commission rewards for completed orders.

on september 12, liang jiqing also responded to the reporter of the national business daily that the promotional plans such as the yuemanying card and the jinding plan were not projects for financing, storing value, or raising funds, nor did they promise any return on investment. therefore, there was no such thing as "investors" in these plans.

however, the statements made by the reporter regarding "illegal fundraising" during the interview were not entirely consistent with the company's explanation.

zhang sisi (pseudonym), who claimed to be a former employee of helijia, resigned in the first half of last year. she told reporters that after resigning, as an external staff, she invested part of her funds in helijia in the first half of this year through the introduction of her former colleagues, with a total investment of more than 300,000 yuan, but there was no contract or other valid documents for this part of the investment.

without a contract, why was zhang sisi willing to invest a large sum of money in helijia? she believed that there were two main reasons: one was the temptation of high interest rates; the other was the introduction of an acquaintance.

in the early days, zhang sisi's investment had a monthly interest rate of 2%; but in may and june of this year, according to her, beaver home raised the monthly interest rate to 3%, and zhang sisi increased her investment amount.

fortunately, after many negotiations, zhang sisi's funds have been recovered. however, she told reporters that her friend invested 300,000 yuan at the time, and 100,000 yuan has not been recovered yet.

regarding the phenomenon that "outsiders" who are not craftsmen put money in the company account and earned interest, liang jiqing mentioned this phenomenon in his reply email on september 12, saying that "internal personnel colluded with external personnel and some craftsmen, pretended to be customers and conducted false transactions with craftsmen to obtain company reward fees."

however, zhang sisi disagrees with this statement. a screenshot of the fund flow she provided to the reporter showed that in april 2024, the account of hangzhou helijia information technology co., ltd. made two transfers to her, 210,000 yuan and 4,200 yuan respectively.

zhang sisi said that she had resigned as early as june 2023, and the two transfers were the principal and rebate transferred to her by helijia in the name of the company. "the company's account is paid by the finance department. can an individual direct the company's finance department to pay money?"

transfer certificate provided by zhang sisi

alibaba is not listed in the list of shareholders in industrial and commercial data

hundreds of thousands of yuan of funds were placed in helijia without signing a contract. how did helijia gain the trust of so many people? in interviews with reporters, many craftsmen mentioned the relationship between the company and alibaba, as well as the company's upcoming listing.

according to beijing business daily, after receiving angel round financing from idg capital in april 2014, helijia has gone through four rounds of financing, with investors also including cbc broadband capital, qiming venture partners, guangxin capital, maixing investment management, liding investment and other institutions. in august 2020, alibaba group made a strategic investment of several hundred million yuan in helijia, becoming the largest shareholder of helijia.

on the recruitment platform, helijia also attached the news that the company received a strategic investment of hundreds of millions of yuan from alibaba, and claimed to be alibaba's only strategic investment platform in the beauty industry. in an article published in june 2023 on the company's official wechat public account "helijia academy", the company stated that "in august 2020, alibaba made a strategic investment of hundreds of millions of yuan in helijia and became the largest shareholder of helijia."

so, what is the relationship between helijia and alibaba? according to the national enterprise credit information publicity system, the shareholders of beijing helijia are six natural persons, including meng xing, chen jiemei, tian hui, liang jiqing, yan jisheng and li fen, and there is no sign of alibaba or other institutions.

as for hangzhou helijia, its shareholders are beijing helijia and hangzhou youhao content network co., ltd., the latter's sole shareholder is the natural person zheng xiangyu.

regarding the equity relationship between beaver home and alibaba, liang jiqing said in a reply email on september 12, "it is of course true that alibaba has made a strategic investment in beaver home. we are a vie-structured company, and the company's equity investment and financing often involves non-rmb fund investment. due to alibaba's information disclosure regulations, it is inconvenient for us to disclose the details."

in addition to linking it to alibaba in its external publicity, beaver home also described to its craftsmen the beautiful vision of the company's upcoming listing.

according to a report by hexun.com in april this year, on april 16, 2024, beaver home officially announced the launch of its ipo at the 10th anniversary craftsmen festival.

according to the chat screenshots provided by the craftsmen, when the craftsmen asked for settlement of the payment, the beaver home staff also emphasized that the company is currently in the listing stage, "only when the company is listed can you develop. if the company is not good, how can you be good?"

with all these doubts, does helijia still have a chance to go public successfully? in view of the allegations of fake orders currently faced by the company, xia sunming, senior partner of beijing zhongyou law firm, believes that the act of inflating profits by fake orders is illegal in itself and undoubtedly constitutes financial fraud. if financial fraud is committed by illegal acts such as fake orders during the listing process, if the circumstances are serious, it may be suspected of fraudulent issuance of securities. of course, whether there is fake orders or financial fraud depends on the investigation results of the regulatory authorities.

why are invisible unicorns in trouble now?

the working hours are flexible and you can earn a good income... although they are still owed money, many craftsmen still feel sorry about beaver house's current situation. after all, beaver house used to be a "pretty good" company.

according to data released by helijia in 2023, the company's total sales in 8 years have reached 10.9 billion yuan. an article published in june 2023 by helijia's official wechat public account "helijia academy" also showed that the company has won the title of "china's top 500 hidden unicorns" for 4 consecutive years, with a valuation of 5 billion yuan.

why has this "invisible unicorn" reached its current state? former employee zhang sisi believes that this has something to do with the personal style of the company's founder meng xing.

as a well-known serial entrepreneur, meng xing has created many internet celebrity companies, among which diaoye beef brisket can be regarded as the originator of the internet celebrity catering industry, but the diaoye beef brisket brand was sold in 2019.

regarding the current situation of helijia, internet analyst zhang shule analyzed in an interview with the reporter of "daily economic news" on wechat that this is related to the company's model. as an o2o life service platform, helijia is essentially an online traffic platform. the services provided by offline service personnel are personalized and different, and it is difficult to standardize them, which inevitably makes the company's management difficult. therefore, no matter how much traffic and offline service personnel the platform gathers, the frequency of services and imagination space that the platform can provide are relatively limited.

the reporter noticed that in recent years, many o2o platforms have been unable to continue. for example, the o2o platform "qingsong daojia", which once received more than 100 million yuan in financing, announced that it would suspend operations because it was overwhelmed by low-price subsidies and its capital chain was broken.

"whether it is housekeeping services or beauty and nail services, it is difficult to truly increase the frequency of these demands." zhang shule also mentioned the squeeze on o2o platforms by comprehensive platforms such as meituan. compared with these comprehensive platforms, vertical life service platforms such as helijia have a greater brand effect in the management process, and the management difficulty is infinitely increased; in addition, in third- and fourth-tier cities, the consumption frequency and demand are weaker, and they mostly rely on offline life services to meet their needs, which also makes it difficult for vertical life service platforms such as helijia to sink into the market.

in a reply email on september 12, liang jiqing said, "everything is normal now within the company. the run on the bank caused by the malicious attack has forced the company into a special period. we have to work together and grit our teeth to get by. however, the employees are still working hard at their posts, and the company's financial reserves are fully capable of supporting the refund plan we have reached with the craftsmen."

on september 11, at the beaver home beijing office, after failing to collect debts, several craftsmen left the beaver home beijing office and said they would "come back tomorrow."