Feishu's commercialization welcomes a key member: Xiong Fei, the former partner of Matrix Partners China, joins. | Exclusive by Zhiyong.
Author | Deng Yongyi
Editor | Su Jianxun Yang Xuan
"Intelligent Emergence" has learned from multiple independent sources that Xiong Fei, the former partner of Matrix Partners China and the former executive of Banniu Technology, has officially joined Feishu recently and reports to Lin Chan, the Chief Commercial Officer of Feishu.
People close to Feishu told "Intelligent Emergence" that after Xiong Fei joined Feishu, he is currently responsible for the sales team in the southern region, and his business scope may continue to expand in the future.
"Intelligent Emergence" confirmed the above information to Feishu. As of the time of publication, Feishu has not responded.
Xiong Fei is a landmark figure in domestic To B investment and has experienced the stage of investment in this field from 0 to 1. He joined Matrix Partners China in 2011, focusing on investments in areas such as Saas, developer services, and new supply chains. He has led investments in start-up enterprises such as PingCAP, Beisen, Qiniu, NebulaGraph, Tai Mei Medical, Xiao Pang Xiong, GaiaWorks, MedPace, Nuoxin, Yi Mai Gong Pin, and DataCloak.
Before that, Xiong Fei served as a product manager at Alibaba and Tencent. For example, at Alibaba, he was responsible for the design and planning of B2B fee-based products (such as Chengxintong).
After leaving Matrix Partners China in 2023, Xiong Fei joined the e-commerce SaaS company "Banniu Technology" and was responsible for the market business system.
Since 2021, Feishu has begun to invest heavily in market growth and has maintained a relatively stable growth in the past three years. At the Feishu Future Unlimited Conference 2024, Feishu CEO Xie Xin disclosed that it is expected that Feishu's ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) in 2024 will exceed 300 million US dollars. In 2023, this figure was 200 million US dollars, and in 2022, it was 100 million US dollars.
In the past two years, with the change in the economic situation, the SaaS market has entered a trough period, and Feishu has also entered a period of strategic contraction.
On the one hand, Feishu has significantly reduced its staff - from a peak of 7,000 people to about 5,000 people at the beginning of 2024. The adjustment range is mainly concentrated in the product research and development and sales teams.
On the other hand, the business concentration has further increased.
The sales organization has also undergone corresponding adjustments. A former Feishu employee told "Intelligent Emergence" that before 2024, Feishu's commercialization team had two major teams, KA and GB. Among them, KA focused on attacking key accounts, while GB focused more on mid-sized enterprises.
"Intelligent Emergence" learned that in the past nearly two years, Feishu has obtained many mid-sized customers. However, affected by the economic and market trends, the budgets of these mid-sized enterprises for digitization have been greatly reduced, and they cannot maintain a long-term SaaS subscription, and the performance is not satisfactory. Therefore, Feishu's GB team has also undergone a round of adjustments.
In 2024, Feishu focuses on attacking KA customers. These customers have a large volume, are relatively less affected by the economy, and have a higher customer unit price and renewal rate. In the past year, Feishu has officially announced several KA customer cases, including Mixue Bingcheng, Shuanghui, Miniso, Yadea, Pechoin, Pangdonglai, EMS, and Bull.
Attacking KA customers requires experienced business veterans with rich industry experience to lead. Now Xiong Fei's joining can also supplement the strength of the commercialization team.
To some extent, Xiong Fei's joining Feishu is also a mirror image of the investment industry: In the well-known environment of US dollar funds and the venture capital market, more and more investors are starting to change tracks.
In addition to Xiong Fei, in 2024, many well-known US dollar investors have left the investment field and joined start-up companies. For example, Pan Pan, the managing partner of Tiantu Capital, joined Chayan Yuese in April 2024 as the strategic director; and Zhang Yutong, the former partner of GSR Ventures, joined the large model start-up Dark Side of the Moon.
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