Huoli Modeng (活力摩簦) ran shared umbrellas for four months, vanished with deposits in doubt

活力摩簦 (Huoli Modeng) entered the shared-umbrella market in August 2017, with its founder announcing plans to deploy one million umbrellas within a year. In practice the service reached only two cities, Hangzhou and Shenzhen. No outside capital ever came in — the company ran on shareholder self-investment, with revenue resting on user deposits, first 99 yuan and later 39 yuan; advertising income from the umbrella canopies was zero.

By early December 2017 — four months after launch — the company had stopped operating. All employees completed resignation procedures and the office was emptied. Co-founder Yi Xinyu said funding could not keep up with development: the sharing economy needs massive scale to work, and investors in late 2017 wanted companies with cash profits, not burn. Reporters testing the service could neither end usage nor get a deposit refund.

The category around it was just as thin: by mid-2017 China had more than 15 shared-umbrella companies, but only a handful had raised anything, all at angel level, while shared power banks raised 1.2 billion yuan in 40 days. An umbrella's working life was estimated at two years, and rental fees alone could not pay for it. Most of the category faded within a year.