The Li Ziqi incident, which had been raging for a long time, finally ended at the end of 2022. After 531 days, Li Ziqi and Weinian reached a settlement.

During this period, many netizens speculated that what happened to Li Ziqi?

Sudden stop and alarm

A series of disputes have come to an end

Timeline sorting:

On July 14, 2021, Li Ziqi released the last video "Salt", which has stopped since then.

On August 26, 2021, Li Ziqi sent a microblog to remind everyone to be careful of being cheated in the name of Li Ziqi, and responded to the matter of stopping the watch, clarifying that Li Ziqi needed time to sort out practical problems and also needed to keep learning.

On August 30, 2021, Li Ziqi sent out a picture and text of the alarm, with the text saying "early morning alarm".

Later, many people speculated that it was harassment tracking that disturbed normal life. Some people said that the team was robbed and the shift was stopped. However, Assistant Li Ziqi also tweeted to refute the rumor, saying that there was no team being poached. Li Ziqi was just sorting out problems with third-party companies.

On October 25, 2021, Li Ziqi Company (Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd., hereinafter referred to as "Ziqi Culture") formally sued Hangzhou Weinian and Liu Tongming, and the handling court was the Intermediate People's Court of Mianyang City, Sichuan Province.

According to shareholder information, Ziqi Culture is 51% owned by Hangzhou Weinian, and Li Ziqi (aka Li Jiajia) holds 49% owned by himself, while Liu Tongming is the major shareholder and actual controller of Hangzhou Weinian.

According to the network information, in October and November 2021, Ziqi Culture sued Weinian Company and Liu Tongming twice, and the undertaking courts were Mianyang Intermediate People's Court.

On November 1, Weinian Company once stated that more than a year ago, the company proposed Li Ziqi's equity plan and direction of cooperation mode, signed an agreement with the consent of shareholders, and communicated with Li Ziqi on equity and other rights and interests several times, but there was no substantive progress.

Then in January and March 2022, Weinian Company sued Ziqi Culture twice, and the courts were the People's Court of Fucheng District, Mianyang City, Sichuan Province and the Intermediate People's Court of Mianyang City, Sichuan Province.

In July and August 2022, Mianyang Intermediate People's Court held two sessions to hear relevant cases.

On December 27, 2022, the two sides reached a settlement.

The origin of the transaction

Can't escape capital

What kind of company is Weinian, the protagonist of the suspected "fight between open and secret" story with Li Ziqi?

According to the network information, Weinian was founded on February 28, 2013, with a registered capital of about 7.761 million yuan. The legal representative and actual controller is Liu Tongming, who holds 20.44% of the shares of Weinian.

In the public information, Weinian is an MCN organization, and its early main business is to incubate network celebrities.

In 2016, the number of followers of Li Ziqi's microblog was less than 10000. Liu Tongming, the experienced founder of WeChat, quickly smelled Li Ziqi's business potential and flew to Sichuan to meet Li Ziqi to talk about cooperation. Li Ziqi focused on content creation, while Liu Tongming was responsible for traffic promotion.

In 2017, Weinian set up a cultural communication company, Sichuan Ziqi, for Li Ziqi in Sichuan, and Li Ziqi's path of counterattack was also opened.

At that time, in addition to Li Ziqi, there were also dozens of short video websites including Lin Xiaozhai, the "blogger goddess", Jacky Xue, the "cat of the nG family" in the short video industry, and the "fragrant little roast chicken", the largest male god in the food video industry.

But in the end, it was Li Ziqi who carried the flag.

In terms of traffic and influence, by 2018, Li Ziqi's Weibo followers had rapidly exceeded 10 million. At the same time, Li Ziqi's commercial liquidity also began to highlight crazily.

In August of the same year, Li Ziqi's Tmall store of the same name officially opened. With the huge fan flow, Li Ziqi's brand quickly became popular in a very short time. Only three days after its launch, the sales volume of five products in the store exceeded 150000.

However, the most attractive and popular one is the later launched plum seven snail powder.

According to data, the annual sales scale of Li Ziqi brand in 2020 is about 1.6 billion yuan. Among them, the monthly sales of snail powder alone exceeded 1 million, with a sales of 500 million yuan a year.

Behind this, there is no lack of the figure of MCN. After snails powder became a popular item on the whole network, "Li Ziqi Brand" took the opportunity to establish the snails powder factory Guangxi Xingliu Food Co., Ltd. According to the network query, the majority shareholder of Guangxi Xingliu is Weinian, with a shareholding ratio of up to 70%.

In July 2020, Weinian changed its industry code from "other technology promotion services" to "Internet retail".

In addition to commercial realization of Li Ziqi's brand value, Weinian has attracted more investors through Li Ziqi. After signing a contract with Li Ziqi, it began to apply for various use lists of trademarks related to Li Ziqi.

According to the network information, after the binding with Li Ziqi, Weinian first obtained tens of millions of A-round financing led by Huaying Capital and co-invested by Zhuoshi Capital in May 2017; Obtained the equity financing of Chenhai Capital in November 2017; In May 2018, it obtained a round B financing of 80 million yuan jointly invested by Mango Cultural Innovation and Sina Weibo Battle Investment; In the next two years, Hongfan Capital, Huaxing New Fund and Zhongyuan Capital have successively entered the market.

In July 2021, ByteDance also rushed to the battlefield, and took 1.48% of the shares of Weinian.

However, one fact that cannot be ignored is that in the past few years, "Li Ziqi" is indeed the "best endorsement" of Weinian. Once irreparable contradictions and disputes occur between the two sides as the netizens guess, it will inevitably cause great trauma to both sides.

Change of equity information after settlement

Who owns the trademark?

With the popularity of Li Ziqi, the brand was expanded around its IP, and consumer products such as Luoshi powder and lotus root powder came into being.

During this period, Weinian registered a number of "Li Ziqi" and "Ziqi" trademarks, covering beer and beverage, convenience food, lighting and air conditioning, machinery, furniture and other industries.

Online information shows that there are many judgment documents related to trademark infringement, and the plaintiff is Hangzhou Weinian.

This also seems to mean that the trademark right of "Li Ziqi" belongs to Hangzhou Weinian. Li Ziqi was not willing to "make wedding clothes for others", but stopped to make "hard" capital.

After reaching a settlement, it also said that Li Ziqi had taken back the control of the company.

According to the network information, Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd. underwent industrial and commercial changes. Liu Tongming, founder of Weinian, withdrew from Li Ziqi. The shareholding ratio of Hangzhou Weinian Brand Management Co., Ltd. decreased from 51% to 1%, and the shareholding ratio of Li Ziqi (Li Jiajia) increased from 49% to 99%.

According to previous information, Sichuan Ziqi is the owner of the "Li Ziqi" trademark, which also means that these trademark resources will be unified back to Li Ziqi himself.

However, Weinian has been responsible for the development and operation of Li Ziqi's brand-related products. At present, Li Ziqi has taken back the right to use the trademark, but it does not involve the development and operation of future products.

It is reported that Li Ziqi (Li Jiajia) and Weinian reached an agreement on some conditions this time, and the two sides will continue to cooperate in the future.

According to the network information, Li Ziqi's real name Li Jiajia has been applied for registration as a trademark by several companies. At present, three trademarks have been successfully registered. The applicants are Zhengzhou One Trade Company and Shenzhen One Technology Company. The international classification includes convenience food, food and advertising sales.

In addition, there is one "Li Jiajia" trademark with the status of "Rejected for Review", and the international classification is 30 categories of convenience food.

Looking at the pitfalls that grassroots entrepreneurs are most likely to fall into, they have no experience in signing contracts and no company knowledge. Some partners will use this to sign contracts, make cooperation agreements and lay the groundwork.

The collapse of a company is generally not a business problem, but a partner's internal friction. Investment needs to be cautious, cooperation needs to be more cautious, and intellectual property related to one's own interests must also be firmly in one's own hands to effectively avoid disputes and lawsuits.

Note: The pictures and texts come from the network. If you have any valuable suggestions, please contact us at any time to revise and update!