Chinese entrepreneur Chen Junliang seems to be having a good year. His ecommerce startup got a large round of funding, and he just got married. We’re not sure how he celebrated the funding news, but we know that his wedding was a lavish affair because there were photographers all over the city of Donguan to prove it.
Chen’s wedding, which took place on November 29, cost a total of RMB 1.5 million (US$250,000), according to Sina News. He coughed up for a fleet of supercars (including an orange Lamborghini Gallardo, several Maseratis, and a stretched Hummer limousine) to transport the bride and bridegroom and dozens of guests, and a stack of thousands of “red envelopes” given out to passersby on the street that contained a total of RMB 90,000 (US$15,000) in cash. Employees from Chen’s startup handed out the cash-filled envelopes, which contained a maximum of RMB 100 (US$16.50) each.
At Chinese weddings, red envelopes are usually gifted by guests to the happy couple – not the other way around, and certainly not to random people on the street.
The rented sports cars and other vehicles in the wedding parade formed a line of cars that appears almost as long as a city block. It was accompanied by at least one police bike outrider, according to photos on Netease News (hat-tip to Shanghaiist for spotting this).
The guests were heading to a wedding reception made up of 80 tables.
See: China’s censors ban TV shows and ads from using internet slang
China’s nouveau riche
Chen is what Chinese people call part of the “post-90s generation” – i.e. he was born after 1990. He could also be classified as tuhao, a newly-minted slang term for China’s newly-minted rich, which comes loaded with the implication that they’re crass and lack taste. We’re not sure how tastefully appointed the wedding reception was, but we like Chen’s taste in supercars.
And at least the wedding was not as nuts as that of former Facebook president Sean Parker, whose 2013 ceremony caused damage to a pristine redwood forest as the billionaire took the idea of a fairytale wedding to its illogical and decadent conclusion.
Chen’s startup is YiKuaiYou, a not particularly remarkable flash sales site that announced RMB 150 million (US$25 million) in series A funding over the weekend. It came online less than a year ago.
Perhaps this is all evidence of the Chinese startup bubble that a local VC warned about recently.
(Source: Sina News)
This post Fast cars and raining cash. It’s not a rap video, it’s a Chinese entrepreneur’s wedding appeared first on Tech in Asia.
Fast cars and raining cash. It’s not a rap video, it’s a Chinese entrepreneur’s wedding
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