Carat Coffee has been closed for less than a year, and the Internet financial industry is cool.

This is a scene seen by a reporter from the Securities Times Venture Capital Exchange (WeChat ID:chuangyzbh) on the first floor of the Century Excellence Center in Futian District, Shenzhen City. The main door has been locked from the inside, the notice of closure notice has been posted on both sides of the middle aisle door, the desks and chairs in the store have also been built up, and workers have been pulled from the store to the side of the road to prepare to move away.

Although there are still seven days to go before the Beginning of Autumn, the coolness of the Internet financial industry seems to have infiltrated long ago. The Internet Finance theme Cafe, which once took the highest style in Shenzhen as the selling point and claimed to be built with a huge sum of money, quietly closed before the strongest typhoon this summer.

The "suspension notice" issued at the door of the carat coffee shows that business will be closed from August 1 and the membership card balance will be returned from August 1 to August 31. It is understood that karat Cafe is the country's first "Internet + Finance" themed cafe, which opened on August 18, 2015.

Carat Coffee 2 _ copy

According to public information, Coffee Coffee adopts a crowdfunding model, and its initiating shareholders include the bosses of first-tier domestic Internet finance companies. They include Zhou Shiping, Chairman of Hongling Venture Capital, Sun Mingda, Chairman of Finance Institute, Lu Langtao, Chairman of E Micro loan, Jian Comet, Chairman of E Express loan, Ying Shuguang, Chairman of Guangdong Commercial loan, Wang Dao, Chairman of Ridge Financial Control, Qi Yang, Chairman of Xinrong Wealth, Yuan Tao, Chairman of Qian Dad, Zhao Botong, Chairman of Yicheng Financial, Li Rui, Chairman of Hi Investment Bar, Tang Jun, Chairman of Tuandaiwang, Chen Kang, Chairman of Gao Sou Yi, and Wei Zheng, CEO Wei Zheng of Krabo. Luo Mingxiong, president of Jingbei Finance and director of the Institute of Internet Finance of Shanghai Jiaotong University.

The once-famous Internet Finance Cafe closed less than a year after its opening, and many people think that the gimmick of using crowdfunding to sell coffee is difficult to cover the high operating costs of CBD in Shenzhen. Some people in the industry commented that if it is the idea that the wool comes out of the pig, it can only be said that the pig in the tuyere is dead and the wool has been eaten again, so the owner of the carat coffee can only shut down.

According to an Internet financial executive who spoke on condition of anonymity, crowdfunding to open a cafe is essentially an unreliable thing, unless the valuation is not adulterated and is valued according to 110% or 120% of the actual hard investment. 10% or 20% higher as a brand premium, while considering the profitability of the coffee shop's own main business (selling coffee and restaurants), what other resources are integrated? Project integration is a virtual thing.

"at such a high cost, there is no way to make a profit by selling a few cups of coffee. Physical enterprises must consider the profitability of the main business. It is unrealistic to talk about any additional business and income in the early stage (within three years)." The person said.

According to people who have held events in Coffee Coffee, an afternoon event costs only 2000 yuan, including drinks and refreshments, and most of the participants are people from Internet financial circles. This year, the entire industry has become increasingly tightly regulated, and the number and frequency of events have dropped sharply compared with last year. There are coffee chains such as Starbucks and Aix Coffee nearby, and business competition is fierce in terms of coffee alone.

According to data from online loan Home, the number of normal operating platforms in the P2P online loan industry dropped further to 2281 at the end of July 2016, down 68 from the end of June and 2.89% from the end of June. July has reached a new low of nearly a year's normal operating platform, which shows that the general trend of "going bad and retaining fine" in the P2P network loan industry is irreversible from the point of view of the number of platforms.

Last year was also the fastest time for the development of Internet finance, and the pursuit of all kinds of capital made practitioners become grandiose for a time. It is reported that in order to show the high pressure grid, the books used to decorate the interior cost 200000, some of which are laid in the glass partition on the floor and have never even been opened.

Perhaps the closure of carat coffee also reflects the changes of the entire online loan industry. From last year to this year, the growth rate of the platform slowed down, the number of listed companies merging P2P companies dropped sharply compared with the previous two years, and well-known venture capital investment cases basically no longer appeared. Instead, the financing cases of the industry are all large platforms, and the signs of de-P2P are very obvious. The mutual fund industry has changed from a loser to a strong Hengqiang centralized trend. Any attempt to deceive by telling stories has been receded by the tide of capital and exposed to the public naked.

The slogan "one carat per inch, one carat per hour" at the glittering door of more than 50 meters of carat coffee is still reminding passers-by, and the entire connected finance industry (3353.71 0.000 centile 0.005%) in the context of the cold winter of capital, it seems that we should cherish the capital per carat in order to go further.