Middle-aged and Elderly Online Interest Community Hongsong Receives Financing Led By BAI Capital
On Wednesday, Hongsong, an online interest community for middle-aged and elderly Chinese people, announced that it had recently obtained financing worth 100 million yuan. BAI Capital was the leading investor and previous shareholders, Matrix Partners, Chuangshi Partner Capital CCV and Lanchi Venture Capital, also invested. Hongsong will use the funds for product R&D and market expansion to better serve their clients.
Hongsong focuses on Chinese retirees and is devoted to “socializing through interests”, covering a variety of fields such as vocal music, musical instruments, calligraphy, painting, dance, recitation, health, digital, English, and tourism.
Utilizing internet resources, Hongsong is able to integrate teachers from all over China so that retirees can not only learn online but also make friends with similar interests from all over the country, thus establishing new relationships through the platform. As the App has gained popularity, Hongsong has served over 10 million retirees and continues to grow.
Li Qiao, founder and CEO of Hongsong, said that Hongsong refuses to be defined as a platform merely for middle-aged and elderly education. Instead, the company is committed to helping people make friends in their age groups with similar interests. Hongsong hopes to establish a new relationship chain platform and to help solve some of the loneliness elderly people can feel as the younger generations whizz by with their work and study.
Yu Long, founding and managing partner of BAI Capital, said that with the change of population dynamics, a large number of people will retire within the next 5 to 10 years, and the new generation of middle-aged and elderly people will have higher requirements for their entertainment and the quality of life. They will also have much greater consumption power and a lot more time. Therefore, there will be plenty of business opportunities in this new shift in demographic changes.
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According to the National Bureau of Statistics, those aged over 60 years exceeded 260 million in 2020 and account for 18.7% of the total population. By 2025, that number could exceed 300 million. With China’s aging population increasing and the spiritual needs of middle-aged and elderly people escalating, the retirement population going online is seeing a huge surge.
