Valuation of $7.5 billion influencer self-heating pot comes to an end: affiliated company subjected to enforcement of 8.81 million, deeply trapped in bankruptcy liquidation dilemma

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Recently, the Qichacha app showed that Su Higuo’s related entity, Hangzhou Jinyangyu Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd., has added a new information item listing it as a person subject to enforcement. The amount involved is more than 8.81 million yuan. This update has once again pushed this once-popular online celebrity hotpot self-heating food brand to the forefront of public debate. This is not an isolated case. Combined with the company’s earlier multiple debt crises, it has officially entered bankruptcy liquidation. Once a “darling” valued at 7.5 billion yuan, it has now reached the end of its operations.

Hangzhou Jinyangyu was established in May 2018. Its registered capital is 150 million yuan. The legal representative is Cai Hongliang. Its business scope includes business management consulting, catering enterprise management, food operations, and more. It is jointly held by Shanghai Lingcai Enterprise Management Consulting Partnership (Limited Partnership) and Cai Hongliang, among others. According to a court announcement, on March 6, 2026, the People’s Court of Yuhang District, Hangzhou, ruled to accept the company’s bankruptcy liquidation case, and designated a law firm to serve as the administrator. Creditors are required to declare their claims by May 7, and a first meeting of creditors will be held on May 14.

Looking back at Su Higuo’s rise, it can be described as a commercial myth. In 2018, after Cai Hongliang’s second entrepreneurial venture launched Su Higuo, it precisely positioned itself in the “single-person meal” segment. Benefiting from the emergency consumption boom during the COVID-19 pandemic, it rapidly captured market share. It once achieved records such as selling 5 million buckets in 10 minutes, and on Double 11, sales exceeding 100 million yuan in just 21 minutes. From 2018 to 2021, the company completed five rounds of financing with a total amount of over 550 million yuan, and its valuation soared all the way to 7.5 billion yuan. Well-known institutions such as CICC and 经纬创投 (Boyu Capital) entered the fray one after another.

However, behind the illusion of prosperity, the crisis was already lurking. The root cause of Su Higuo’s decline lies in its distorted development model of “heavy marketing and light product.” From 2020 to 2021, the company’s sales expense ratio at one point exceeded 40%. In 2021 alone, marketing expenses were as high as 432 million yuan. It burned money to buy traffic—by inviting top-tier celebrities as brand ambassadors, and densely placing it into film and television dramas and variety shows—while overlooking the shortcomings of the product itself. Self-heating food has safety risks such as heating packet explosions and scalding injuries. It is also prohibited on high-speed trains and airplanes. After the pandemic, the emergency consumption scenarios disappeared. In addition, its value for money was relatively low, and the repurchase rate dropped sharply.

To make matters worse, blind expansion further increased its capital pressure. In the short term, the company expanded its SKU to more than 100 items and also built 15 factories from scratch, with total investment of more than 2 billion yuan, leading to idle capacity and accumulated inventory. In 2023, Lianhua Health intended to acquire part of its equity, but the deal fell through, causing the company to miss a key round of capital “blood transfusion,” and its capital chain ultimately broke completely. As of now, the total amount for enforcement against Hangzhou Jinyangyu is more than 140 million yuan, with historical cumulative enforcement exceeding 320 million yuan. There are also records of 9 people being listed as untrustworthy and subject to enforcement, and Cai Hongliang has been restricted from high consumption multiple times.

The demise of Su Higuo is not only the failure of a brand, but also reflects the common dilemma faced by online celebrity brands. In today’s downturn in consumption and investment, brands that are “grown” through capital and traffic—if they lack strong core product capabilities and a healthy profit model—will ultimately reveal their true nature when the tide recedes. This fall from a valuation of 7.5 billion yuan to bankruptcy liquidation serves as a warning bell to all entrepreneurs who rely on traffic: only by deeply developing products and expanding rationally can they stand firm in fierce market competition, while “self-indulgence” that is detached from the commercial essence will ultimately disappear.