Only Strong Ties Survive

You might know Renren as the Chinese Facebook. But get ready for Renren 2.0: the Chinese Kickstarter. According to a recent news report, Renren get started offering peer-to-peer loan services.

Not to be outdone, Innovation Works, the company helmed by Microsoft and Google veteran Kai-Fu Lee and a Chinese Y-Incubator wanna-be, has finished raising new funds that will transform the company into a more conventional venture capital firm.

If you want a simple reason for both transformations, it is this: neither business model, in their original incarnation, made money. Renren had a lot of users, but even with the addition of revenue from gaming, loses money, and loses it quickly, as in $25 million a quarter.

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