Du Xiaoman Financial

Du Xiaoman Financial is a Beijing-based fintech company that began in 2015 as Baidu's in-house Financial Services Group, offering consumer credit, wealth management and payments products before completing an independent financing spin-off from Baidu in 2018.

In May 2018, Baidu divested a majority stake in the unit through a $1.9 billion financing round led by TPG, which invested nearly $1 billion for a 26% stake, alongside The Carlyle Group, Taikang Group and Agricultural Bank of China International Holdings; Baidu retained a 38% stake, and the deal implied a valuation of roughly $4 billion for the newly renamed Du Xiaoman Financial. Guang Zhu, who had run Baidu's financial services group, became Du Xiaoman's chief executive officer.

By late 2019, Hurun's China Unicorn Index valued Du Xiaoman at around RMB 20 billion. The company has since built out consumer lending, wealth management and payments businesses primarily through its Du Xiaoman Payment and small-loan subsidiaries, without the native transaction volume of ecosystem-anchored rivals like Alipay or WeChat Pay.

Du Xiaoman has faced growing regulatory and reputational pressure in China: its payments subsidiary was fined by the People's Bank of China's Beijing branch in September 2024 for compliance violations, and consumers have lodged tens of thousands of complaints over interest-rate disclosure and collection practices. Its total assets fell 16% during 2024 even as reported profit rose sharply, and Hurun's Global Unicorn List valued the company at roughly RMB 11 billion by late 2025 - down from the RMB 26 billion implied by its 2018 spin-off - as it built out new cash-lending operations in Mexico and Indonesia.