King of Capital

Chapter 491: $10 Billion Financing Plan

8pm, North Fourth Ring Road.

Silver light pours down like a waterfall through the hundred-meter glass curtain wall, and neon lights of Sina's logo flow on the rooftop exterior wall. This office building has always been the most eye-catching landmark building in Zhongguancun since the day it was built.

In the days when in-car map navigation systems cost thousands of yuan, taxi drivers had to rely on verbal instructions. The driver might not know the "Ideal International Building", but once you got off the Haidian Bridge and turned the corner, you would definitely see the nearly 100-meter-high glass-curtain-walled building.

Robin Li has personally inquired about this several times, wanting to replace the ugly big eyes on the roof with his own logo. After searching for it for a long time - Baidu, the company name chosen from Song Dynasty poetry sounds classy, ​​doesn't it!
The building property management said that we don’t care about the level, and we just want to hang the name of the company that rents the largest area on the exterior wall. We got really annoyed and reluctantly agreed to give us a spot on the side of the exterior wall.

This is a bit embarrassing. It has no meaning if you are not in the C position. But even though Li Yanhong is not convinced, he has to keep his mouth shut.

Because the higher the office floor, the more expensive the rent, everyone rents from the bottom floor to the upper floors. Only Sina moved from the primary school annex building in Wanquanzhuang to Ideal Building, and then rented from the top floor to the bottom floor, stepping on all the companies in Zhongguancun.

In those years, Zhang Chaoyang was busy spending money on wine and women and playing with female stars, Ding Lei treated senior executives as house slaves and thieves and launched a massive purge, Ma Huateng just didn't have to play the role of a female netizen, and Zhang Yiming stood in the crowd like a minion.

Sina News Portal was the top Internet giant in China until Baidu's closing price soared fivefold on the night of its listing in the United States. Ideal Building Property hung celebratory banners throughout the building to congratulate Robin Li on becoming the first founder of a listed company in the building. The era thus changed.

After that, he never mentioned the exterior wall logo again. He bought a piece of land and waited patiently for every brick and tile to be completed, and led the company to move into the Baidu Building.

But the Ideal Building still carries the ideals of countless entrepreneurs.

If Huaqing Jiayuan Community is the spiritual sanctuary of Wang Xing, Zhang Yiming and their group of young people in the prime of the mobile era, then this building is the spiritual homeland and obsession of the old and young people in the PC era.

When Dai Wei was seventeen years old, he sat in front of the computer and watched Robin Li ring the bell to announce the listing of Baidu. A seed was planted in the heart of the young boy, so at the beginning of the year he received over 100 million US dollars in financing and moved his company into this "hometown" that he had never seen before.

The annual rent for the fourth floor is nearly 60 million yuan, which is not a small expense for ofo for the time being, but the floor is also a bit low.

It's not a big problem. He hung a sign saying 'Victory' at the front desk of the company. All dissatisfaction will be successfully filled in the end. Weibo's self-built headquarters will be completed and moved out at the end of the year. At that time, the roof and exterior wall will light up in bright yellow.

"If I can't lead the merger, there's no need for us to talk."

Dai Wei sat in a corner of a coffee shop on the ground floor facing the street. He withdrew his gaze from the roof of the building, put down the mug in his hand and drew a serious conclusion.

Yan Wenhua nodded slightly: "Actually, I really want to know your attitude towards smart locks."

"I always believe that in the process of a company's business development, each stage has its own things to do, and nothing remains unchanged," Dai Wei said succinctly.

Yan Wenhua said without comment: "Mobike insists on using technology to solve all product problems, while ofo is focusing on the transportation network route. There are differences in the basic business models of the two parties. This is a topic we have discussed a long time ago."

"Different paths lead to the same destination, and everyone can be compatible. I don't think we are bad at technology, but the current market competition is focused on coverage."

Dai Wei repeated the words and added in a relaxed tone: "If technology could handle everything, we wouldn't have to sit here face to face now."

Mobike is more like the traditional rental industry, where the bicycles are well-made and users like to ride them; while ofo has placed bicycles at every transportation node, and when users need to ride, they can ride if there is a bicycle nearby.

After two years of technological accumulation, the former has reduced the production cost of bicycles to the level of thousands of yuan, and has been frantically deploying bicycles to increase coverage, and it is natural to build a transportation network.

The latter has no competitive barriers in its own business model. On the contrary, it still uses mechanical locks with poor positioning functions, resulting in ridiculously high operating costs.

Last year, when Zhu Xiaohu had a fight in his circle of friends about the theoretical line, it was clear that Xie Jingxing and Ma Ge won, but Dai Wei absolutely refused to admit defeat.

When he and the investors announced that the battle would end in 90 days, their idea was to quickly cover the market at a low cost and kill Mobike in a short period of time, so there would be no differentiation in the business model.

All I can say is that I have to admit that Xie Jingxing is too rich. In the early stages of the game, the krypton gold guy used a development-based late-stage mage core that required stacking skill points to resist ofo, a physical monster with extremely high panel values ​​when it appeared.

Now that the game has entered the mid-term stage, the normal plot should be that they have defeated all competitors and monopolized the market. They can then go back and slowly develop smart locks, improve the quality of bicycles, and increase their future growth space.

However, even though Mobike is doing well now, ofo is beginning to show the disadvantages of its early career being weak in the later period. Its monthly active users and other data have also caught up from being nearly half behind at the end of last year to almost being on par with the latter. The gap between the two can only be seen in who is more shameless and has more watered-down financial reports.

Dai Wei refused to accept Yan Wenhua's suppression from the bottom of his heart, and continuing to fight was just a test of speed and endurance.

Whether Mobike can be the first to reduce the production cost of bicycles to the hundreds of yuan level, or Ofo can successfully transition and follow up on smart locks, it will not be a problem for it to burn another $20 billion in the process.

So since Yan Wenhua has taken the initiative to arrange a meeting, don’t waste your time. We are all equal in status so if we can reach an agreement we can talk, otherwise we can break up!
Dai Wei does not avoid competition at all. If he is allowed to take the money and leave, what is the difference between that and letting the shared bikes die in his hands?
"If Mr. Cheng had taken the initiative to yield when Didi and Kuaidi merged, the online car-hailing market might have taken a completely different direction," he said sharply and with confidence.

"Yes, I can understand your thoughts very well."

Yan Wenhua just smiled softly and said frankly: "After all, we initially invested in Mobike's existing founding team. To put it bluntly, we were not optimistic about ofo at first."

"Then there's no need for us to talk." Dai Wei immediately spread his hands, stood up and left.

"The reason why I didn't contact ofo's investors through an intermediary to make an appointment with you directly is that I think that in many cases it doesn't necessarily mean that you can't have it without me, and there is room for discussion among us."

"How to discuss?"

"Think about it. If you have any ideas, feel free to contact me."

Yan Wenhua picked up the mug leisurely and saw the guest off. Dai Wei felt a little suspicious and thought to himself that he was playing tricks. He walked out of the coffee shop in three or two steps and stopped to look back. Then he picked himself up and walked back to the Ideal Building with determination.

No matter how divided everyone's interests are at present, Xie Jingxing created a business plan and won early investment. It can be said that he is the real soul of Mobike. During the callback period, most of Tencent and Didi's many investors were attracted by him to join.

As the major shareholder and nominal founder, Hu Weiwei has performed his will fairly well.

Therefore, as long as Mobike leads the merger, it will be impossible to kick her out. If the company expands, Wang Xiaofeng will not have any reason to keep her.

Yan Wenhua sighed silently, hoping that Dai Wei, this idiot, could be smarter and not waste his efforts.

Didi artificially delayed Mobike's financing plan, largely in order to maximize the voice of investors and gain a certain amount of negotiation space to cede to ofo.

If Dai Wei is capable, he will bring his people to take control of some power in the new company after the merger, Hu Weiwei will remain in her position, and Wang Xiaofeng will be eliminated.

Of course, this is the upper limit. Even if Didi and New Big Elephant officially come into opposition, no one from Cheng Wei to Liu Qing, Li Bin, Liu Chih-ping, Yan Wenhua... will suddenly become ill and think that he can replace Xie Jingxing. Although Hu Weiwei is not capable, she knows herself well and is very obedient under the training of Xie Jingxing. Dai Wei does not look like someone who is willing to be a dog. It is hard to say what kind of ditch he will drive the car into if he has full say.

…………

"Mr. Yan, forgive me for being blunt, but including your invitation, I have read no less than ten shared bike business plans in the past few months."

Song Anlan, a partner from SoftBank China, is a thin and dark-skinned man. He was one of the first batch of science champions after the resumption of the college entrance examination in the 1970s. People in the industry nicknamed him Dr. Song, and he speaks in a straightforward and direct manner.

It was he who vetoed investing in ofo at the beginning of the year. The reason was very simple: it did not conform to SoftBank China's long-term investment strategy: scalable necessities and super founding teams.

First of all, Dai Wei and his bunch of idiots have nothing to do with super.

Mobike does fit the bill. Its founding investor, Shaoshuai Xie, is considered the best of the best. He personally created the bike-sharing boom!

Then again, this vent is man-made, so how can we talk about expansion necessities...

"Dr. Song, the Mobike project has all the elements of the sharing economy. Its business model is not fundamentally different from Didi's. It solves the necessary needs of a certain scenario of public transportation." Yan Wenhua insisted reluctantly.

Song Anlan shook his head repeatedly: "It's already 2016, and it's hard for us to say that the only solution for 0-5 kilometers of travel is shared bicycles. I have an electric balance car project here. Are you interested?"

"Haha, Dr. Song is really humorous. I don't think electric balance bikes can accumulate tens of millions of traffic pools in the O2O business model. Mobike has exceeded 1300 million monthly active users, making it the seventh APP in China with tens of millions of monthly active users."

Yan Wenhua persevered in laying out the financing BP: "The platforms at this level are Taobao, JD.com, Didi, and Meituan. You can take a closer look."

"Well, how can we monetize this traffic? We can attract investment for advertising business, add Internet financial products, or expand online car-hailing services. I can think of many value-added business directions, but it is difficult for them to match the valuation of 5 billion US dollars." Song Anlan had a clear attitude.

"..."

This was the end of the conversation, and Yan Wenhua was speechless.

With a valuation of US$50 billion and the transfer of 20% of shares to raise US$10 billion, Hu Weiwei's financing plan looks very reasonable just looking at the data on paper. Compared with platforms of the same scale with monthly active users, all of them have valuations of hundreds of billions of dollars.

However, Mobike can be divided into two levels. The supply side is a heavy asset operation, with a bike costing thousands of yuan plus ongoing operating costs; relatively speaking, the sales side doesn’t even know how to define it. A ride costs 5 to 1 yuan, so how much value can such a cheap monthly active traffic of tens of millions convert?
Tencent did not hesitate to lie down and play dead, and in this round of financing, it invested at most 30 to 50 million US dollars. Li Bin and other early investors all grinned and shouted, "We are different. We have the will but not the power to contribute a single cent."

New DAEI is in control and intends to lead the investment with US$5 million. Grapefruit Capital is willing to follow up with US$2 million. Another Southeast Asia Vision Fund that came out of nowhere is actively contacting and participating in the follow-up investment.

This is the remaining reason why Didi artificially delayed Mobike's financing progress. After this financing plan is completed, the shareholding ratio of Xie Capital + Hu Weiwei will increase to more than 70%, and the significance of acquiring Ofo to dilute the shareholding structure will be completely lost.

On the night of the Meizu product launch, Yan Wenhua and the duo of Liu and Cheng mentioned that they had anticipated the "money competition" and planned to seek help from SoftBank, the company's major shareholder. The priority of introducing an external lead investor in the new round of financing was naturally higher than that of the early investors.

As a result, Xie Jingxing pushed the valuation up by a huge amount.

Not to mention that Dr. Song of SoftBank China felt it was not worth it, Yan Wenhua himself felt deeply betrayed and seriously suspected that his good brother had become insane because of Hu Weiwei's harm.

Why bother merging with this money? Wouldn’t it be better to buy a coffin for Dai Wei?

He didn't believe at all that Ofo could follow up with a new round of financing of the same size.

…………

"Mr. Zhu, what do the people from Alibaba's strategic investment say?"

At the Jinshajiang office, Dai Wei walked straight into the partner's office with a familiar look and got straight to the point.

Zhu Xiaohu stood up from his desk to greet him, coughed lightly and said vaguely: "They should be holding an internal meeting to discuss it."

"It doesn't matter what they think, but they cannot affect the company's operations. This was the premise for me to accept their investment!" Dai Wei put his hands on his hips and was so angry that he had no way to vent.

Zhu Xiaohu pressed his shoulder and motioned for him to sit down and talk: "Don't think too much. It's a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Anyone would have to think carefully about it."

"They know better than anyone whether this is a business matter or a personal grudge. If they had a cooperative attitude, how could they not answer my call? I sent a colleague to Alibaba's Hangzhou headquarters, but they couldn't even get in the door?"

Dai Wei became more and more excited as he spoke, and threatened fiercely: "Please tell Ali that if he doesn't call me before tonight, there will be no contact in the future!"

After saying that, he got up and left. Zhu Xiaohu chased after him and tried to try to stop him, but it was of no avail. He watched him disappear in a flash, with a bitter face and cursing the unexpected disaster.

As soon as Alibaba received the news that Didi was brokering a merger between Mobike and Ofo, it immediately shook its head and categorically refused, not even thinking about it.

Just as Yan Wenhua said, everything depends on human effort. He was responsible for persuading the common major shareholder Softbank, while Zhu Xiaohu contacted and coordinated with other shareholders. If both soft and hard tactics didn't work, he would resort to force.

Then Ali took out the investment agreement and slapped it in the face of the peace faction. He had a veto power over major business matters such as financing and mergers.

From Didi to shared bikes, every time a deadlock occurs, Zhu Xiaohu jumps up and down. In addition, Dai Wei is young and hot-tempered and talks nonsense, so the representative of Alibaba's board of directors directly said: Not only don't even think about a merger, but the new round of financing will also make you suffer a little to teach you a lesson.

Ofo started late and has been following up on each round of financing for a long time.

That is, Mobike has completed a round of financing. Everyone should try not to look at the valuation, and those who have money will contribute money, and those who have strength will contribute strength to raise the funds needed to compete.

When Yan Wenhua was caught in a dilemma by the 10 billion financing plan, the cash flow of the small yellow car was empty...

In recent days, Dai Wei has been trying every means to restore the relationship and cooperate with each other to start a new round of financing.

Alibaba remained indifferent and used the same delaying tactic as Didi, simply refusing to answer the phone and meet with the client, making it difficult for the financing plan to make any progress.

Dai Wei’s mentality is on the verge of collapse.

(End of this chapter)