LinkedIn’s biggest rival in China just suddenly and unexpectedly shut down

Image credit: Tianji that claims to have 25 million users in the country, suddenly shut down over the weekend with little warning given.

The Tianji homepage is now blank apart from a message. “We are sorry to inform you that the service of Tianji.com will be ended by December 27, 2015.” The announcement of the closure came on December 24, meaning that it vanished into thin air in just a few days, leaving users with no way to retrieve any information that they might have wanted to save. “To protect your privacy and relevant information, we will delete all data. Thank you for your support and trust!” adds the message.

Tianji is owned by a French firm named Viadeo. As reported by Tech.eu, Viadeo announced on Christmas Eve (a good day to bury news) that it would be shutting down its operations in China. The reason – it’s “part of Viadeo’s strategy to refocus on France.”

Viadeo’s announcement says that Tianji became a ‘burden’.

A Viadeo representative in France contacted by Tech in Asia today declined to comment.

I’d like to add you to my professional network

Viadeo entered the China market in 2007. LinkedIn did not formally enter China until 2014, giving Tianji – as well as several homegrown rivals – a chance to fill the professional social networking void. By late 2011, the team told us it was adding 380,000 new users per month.

A video ad for LinkedIn seen in Shanghai’s subway. Image credit: author.

In 2012, Viadeo secured a round of series D fundraising worth US$32 million – a large chunk of which was designated for growth in China with Tianji. The French firm IPO’d in mid-2014.

Although Tianji claims to have 25 million people onboard, that figure likely refers to registered users, not active users. It’s not known how well Tianji was performing since LinkedIn came into China.

Viadeo’s announcement describes Tianji as a “burden”. It explains that the China withdrawal was for three reasons. “Firstly, the company’s IPO in 2014 raised only part of the funds it initially wanted. Well, in China’s fiercely competitive market, with a potential 600 million Internet users, increasing the Tianji member base would require very considerable development resources.”

“Furthermore, China’s business networks market has undergone substantial transformation in recent years, mainly due to the explosion of mobile telephony [lol at “telephony” – Ed], changing usage patterns considerably. Despite Viadeo’s significant local adaptation efforts, the mobile revolution combined with maintaining a competitive offer in China would require heavy capital investment by the company.”

It concludes, “In view of this, in the first half of 2015 the company went looking for an investor, buyer, or local partner, who could guarantee stability and commitment to support it in this market. However, China’s changing economic conditions marked by a historical slowdown in growth, a major financial crisis in the summer of 2015 and repeated devaluations of the nation’s currency dashed hopes of identifying such a partner.”

A rough translation: China got too rich for us.