The "matchmaker" invested by Lei Jun is going for an IPO.
Milian Technology, the parent company of Yidui, submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Author | Wang Tao Editor | Wu Ren
Source | Rongzhong Finance
Another "matchmaking platform" is going to IPO.
Not long ago, Milian Technology, the parent company of Yidui, submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with Huatai International serving as the sole sponsor. This is also the second attempt after the expiration of Milian's first prospectus submission last September.
It is reported that Milian operates several online emotional social platforms at home and abroad. Among them, the Yidui APP launched in 2017 is the core product of Milian Technology. The updated prospectus shows that the tripartite interaction guided by the host and the revenue sharing model it pioneered brought a total revenue of 3.367 billion yuan to the parent company in 2025, accounting for about 80% of the total revenue.
Different from the common practice of "losing money to gain popularity" among Internet companies, Milian's financial report is very impressive. The prospectus reveals that its annual revenue in 2025 was 4.122 billion yuan, and the net profit was 519 million yuan, a year-on-year surge of 256%.
The secret to making money lies in that it doesn't follow the path of traditional social platforms, but sets up an "online matchmaker" venue. More than 190,000 matchmakers are active on the platform, earning commissions by facilitating user interactions and guiding virtual gift consumption. The prospectus shows that the expenditure on matchmaker commissions alone exceeded 1.8 billion yuan last year.
This approach can well help ordinary consumers who are not good at socializing. The unique way of "video blind date + matchmaker matchmaking" has become its unique barrier. It is disclosed that Milian Technology has successfully completed multiple rounds of financing, with investors including BlueRun Ventures, Xiaomi Group, XVC, Yunjiu Capital, and the Cultural Industry Fund of People's Daily.
Currently, there are more than 240 million single people in China, and the marriage and fertility rates are continuously declining. Therefore, the "lonely economy" has given rise to an online emotional social market worth tens of billions of yuan, and Milian Technology happens to be riding on this wave.
However, disputes such as inducing consumption, fraud risks, and over - reliance on a single product have always been associated with it.
Two Entrepreneurial Ventures of Yanshan University Alumni
The story of Milian Technology starts with two old classmates from Yanshan University.
Ren Zhe, the founder, and Zhu Xiaopu, the co - founder, are classmates in the Department of Computer Science at Yanshan University. After graduation, Ren Zhe first joined IBM as a technician. Two years later, he switched to Deloitte Consulting and then went to Oracle. After spending seven or eight years in the foreign - enterprise system, he typically shifted from technology to management.
Zhu Xiaopu joined Motorola and stayed there for nearly seven years. Those years were exactly the period when Motorola declined from its peak. Having witnessed the ups and downs of a giant enterprise, he was more sensitive to the mobile Internet than ordinary people.
In 2011, the two met in Beijing and jointly founded "Blue Trend Technology". At that time, Ren Zhe served as the CEO and Zhu Xiaopu as the COO, embarking on the entrepreneurial journey.
The first project they worked on was a "travel - version Douban", focusing on interest - based social networking. It sounded great, but the market response was cold. Ren Zhe later said in an interview that "the data was extremely poor, the user retention was also poor, and there was no possibility of a turnaround."
Later, their first entrepreneurial project failed, but they didn't go their separate ways.
In September 2015, they founded Milian, with Ren Zhe holding 61% of the shares and Zhu Xiaopu 39%. They changed their target to the marriage and love social networking field. And in 2017, they launched the "Yidui" App.
However, the first version of Yidui was completely different from the current one.
The original Yidui copied the left - swipe and right - swipe model of Tantan and removed the payment threshold. They thought that free access could attract more people, but the result was a dismal failure.
Ren Zhe later analyzed that Tantan's gameplay is suitable for young people in first - and second - tier cities who are good at online socializing. But Yidui aimed at ordinary people in the sinking market who are around 30 years old and not good at "flirting" online to avoid competition.
From 2017 to 2019, the team almost completely rebuilt the product.
The turning point came in 2019. The Milian team brought the traditional Chinese "matchmaker - arranged marriage" concept online. Specifically, they developed a "tripartite video interaction" model. It includes a matchmaker, a man, and a woman, all appearing in the live - broadcast room at the same time. The matchmaker warms up the atmosphere, guides the topic, and controls the rhythm, and the male and female guests chat under the matchmaker's guidance.
The effect after the revision was immediate. In 2019, the daily active users of Yidui increased more than tenfold. Users from the sinking market flocked in. These people may be shy in offline blind - date situations, but with a screen between them and an enthusiastic matchmaker to guide the conversation, they can open up. This seemingly not - so - sophisticated innovation accidentally hit a long - neglected demand in the industry.
The popularity of Yidui attracted the attention of capital. In March 2019, when its innovative video blind - date model was initially verified by the market, it received a Series A investment of 24.6 million yuan from BlueRun Ventures, injecting the first key funds for the company's subsequent development. Then in June 2019, the company completed a $10 million Series A+ financing led by XVC, with BlueRun Ventures continuing to participate. The post - investment valuation reached $87.33 million.
In 2020, the Cultural Industry Fund of People's Daily participated in the company's Pre - B round. The presence of a state - owned - background shareholder in such an online marriage - related enterprise, to some extent, provided an endorsement for Milian Technology in terms of compliance. Later, more institutions such as Xiaomi and Shunwei Capital participated, and the valuation reached $113 million.
From the failure of their first entrepreneurial attempt in 2011 to finding a successful model in 2019, Ren Zhe and Zhu Xiaopu spent eight years going around in circles. During these eight years, the trends in the Internet social - networking track changed several times, and they missed the opportunities several times. In the end, it was the most "down - to - earth" idea that made them successful.
190,000 Matchmakers Support a 4 - Billion - Yuan Business
Currently, there are many online marriage - related platforms, but Milian Technology is the most profitable one.
According to the prospectus, the company's revenues from 2022 to 2025 were 1.052 billion, 1.034 billion, 2.373 billion, and 4.122 billion yuan respectively. The first two years were basically stagnant, but in 2024, it was like stepping on the accelerator, and the revenue quadrupled in two years.
Among them, the change in net profit is even more exaggerated. In 2022, it had a loss of 13 million yuan, in 2023, a loss of 17 million yuan, in 2024, it made a profit of 146 million yuan, and in 2025, it soared directly to 519 million yuan. It only took two years to go from the initial loss to making 500 million yuan a year.
Currently, Milian Technology has three main product directions, covering the emotional social - networking field, including Yidui, Tietie, and a social - product matrix for overseas markets.
In terms of revenue, "virtual items and interactive functions" account for more than 70% for a long time. This function is simply that users send virtual gifts to opposite - sex guests in the live - broadcast room, and the platform takes a commission from it.
The reason why this model works mainly depends on those 193,000 matchmakers.
They are not employees of Milian. They have no labor contracts, no basic salaries, and no social insurance and housing funds. Most of them are converted from ordinary users and earn commissions by facilitating matches. Matchmakers guide male and female guests to interact and exchange virtual gifts, and matchmakers can get a maximum commission of 52%.
It is reported that it is normal for active matchmakers to earn more than 10,000 yuan per month, and the monthly income of some top - tier matchmakers can reach six figures. This "zero - basic - salary, pure - commission" flexible employment model saves labor costs, and thus the company's gross profit margin increased from 44.6% in 2022 to 50.6% in 2025.
Of course, the problems behind this are also obvious.
In 2025, a single product, "Yidui", contributed 3.367 billion yuan, accounting for 81.7% of the total revenue. The second product, "Tietie", targets young people aged 18 to 30, focusing on voice chatting and game - based social networking. It was launched in 2022, and its revenue reached 582 million yuan in 2025, far behind Yidui in terms of scale. In the overseas product matrix, even if several apps are combined, their share is still very small.
High - level dependence on a single product is a serious problem for any company. It's like the entire company's lifeline is tied to Yidui. Once something goes wrong with Yidui, other products have no ability to support.
Moreover, like other platforms, there have been continuous disputes regarding compliance in recent years.
Online marriage - related services are a natural gray area. False identities, fraud for lead - generation, and inducing consumption are common problems in the industry. Searching for "Yidui and love" on the China Judgments Online can yield nearly 300 relevant legal documents.
There are female defendants who met multiple men through Yidui and defrauded them of money in the name of love; there are also men who concealed their married status and interacted with several women on the platform at the same time. In 2021, the police in Yibin cracked a gang - fraud case involving 15 people. The criminals specifically bought mobile phone numbers to register Yidui accounts, packaged themselves with false identities, and then guided victims to add WeChat for targeted fraud.
In the prospectus, Milian Technology emphasizes that it has a "zero administrative penalty" record and says that it has invested a large amount of resources in building an anti - fraud system. However, user complaints have always existed, and there are as many as thousands of relevant complaints on the Black Cat Complaint platform.
In addition, there is another not - so - good - looking problem. Milian's R & D investment is shrinking. The proportion of R & D expenses to revenue has dropped from 8.2% in 2022 to less than 5% in 2025. As a platform that claims to be "driven by relationship - chain data algorithms", the decreasing R & D investment year by year is a bit contradictory.
In terms of user data, Yidui had an average monthly active user base of 10.3 million in 2025, with 1.2 million monthly paying users. Moreover, its user stickiness is indeed strong, with an average monthly usage time of 8 hours, a seven - day retention rate of 71.9%, and an average monthly launch frequency of more than 100 times. These data far exceed the industry average.
However, the payment conversion rate also shows that a large number of users are just onlookers, and only a small number of people actually pay. The model that relies on a small number of people to pay has been verified in the live - streaming reward field. It can indeed create short - term growth but is also easy to hit the ceiling.
What Is the Leader in the Billion - Yuan Track Anxious About?
In 2025, the scale of the Chinese online emotional social - networking market reached tens of billions of yuan, and Yidui ranked first with a market share of 11.6%. The fact that the market share of the industry leader is only 11.6% also shows that the track is fragmented and far from an oligopoly pattern.
Moreover, although there are many players, only a very small number of them are making money.
Jiayuan.com and Zhenai.com are both established players in this track, but they have been frequently fined in recent years, leading to a decline in their reputations. At the beginning of this year, the two platforms were also punished by the regulatory authorities for violations.
Momo relies on live - streaming shows to maintain its position. Most of the user rewards are for the host's appearance, and its social attribute has been severely diluted. In 2025, the number of paying users dropped to 3.5 million, and the net profit in the same period declined by more than 40%. Soul was once regarded as a new star in the Z - generation social - networking field, but there has been no news since it submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2023.
The current situation of many participants shows that the entire track is in a state of "having demand but no benchmarks".
The smart thing about Milian Technology is that it didn't compete with Tantan and Momo for the users in first - and second - tier cities who have been repeatedly screened. Instead, it focused on the sinking market and the "older - age and in - need" population.
People around 30 years old in third - and fourth - tier cities, who are not good at online socializing but are eager to find a partner, have had their pain points neglected by traditional platforms for too long. The matchmaker model is like giving them a "social crutch", lowering the participation threshold.
From the data comparison, Yidui achieved a half - year revenue of 1.5 billion yuan with 4.8 million monthly active users, while Momo has a larger user base, but its profitability in the same period is rapidly declining.
However, how far can this path go?
In recent years, the domestic supervision of live - streaming rewards and virtual consumption has become stricter. Milian Technology's core monetization relies on virtual gifts. If the supervision sets an upper limit on the reward - sharing ratio and the payment amount, the revenue model will have to be adjusted passively. The prospectus also states this very clearly: If relevant laws and regulations put forward stricter requirements for virtual gifts and inducing consumption, the operating performance of the core products may be significantly and adversely affected.
The sharp increase in revenue in 2024 and 2025 is largely due to the rapid expansion of the matchmaker network. However, the number of matchmakers is not unlimited. As the number increases from 100,000 to 190,000, the revenue brought by each additional matchmaker must be decreasing.
Moreover, the matchmaker commission ratio is high. The larger the scale, the more revenue is given to matchmakers, and the smaller the profit margin will be. In 2025, the proportion of these commission fees in the operating cost has reached 90%, and this figure will continue to rise in the future.
Facing these problems, like most enterprises, Milian chose an overseas expansion strategy. Since 2024, it has successively launched overseas products HiFami, Chatta, and Seeta for Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North America. As of the end of 2025, the overseas daily active users have reached 5.23 million, even exceeding the daily active users of Tietie. In September 2025, it also launched a new product with AI audio - interaction functions specifically for young Chinese - speaking women in Southeast Asia.
There is a lot of room for imagination in the overseas market, but its contribution to revenue is still limited at present. Whether the localization operation can really succeed is still unknown.
In terms of investors, the presence of Shunwei Capital and Xiaomi continues Lei Jun's system's consistent preference for consumer products in the sinking market. And the participation of the Cultural Industry Fund of People's Daily provides an endorsement, which will reduce people's doubts about its rationality.
The prospectus shows that