Huayu: Starting from Fahrenheit

Chapter 441 Financing Amount, New Investment Projects

August has arrived.

The relevant financing matters for Legend have been basically settled.

In addition to Wanda's investment of 6 million RMB,

CITIC, Sina, Sony, and JD.com's Liu Qiangdong each contributed 3 million, 1.5 million, and 1.5 million respectively.

They hold 5%, 2.5%, and 2.5% of the shares, respectively.

It's a total of 20% of the shares.

After the financing was completed, Legend's shareholding structure began to become complicated.

Wu Zhuo remains the company's largest shareholder with 57% of the shares.

However, there are many minority shareholders.

Apart from Zheng Jianfeng, the company president, who holds 10% of the shares.

Some senior executives in other companies also own a certain percentage of shares.

Even Wu Jing, Ye Weimin, Liu Shishi, Wang Baoqiang, and others have purchased a certain number of shares.
They're just waiting to make a fortune after the company goes public.

The time for the IPO bell-ringing ceremony is not yet here.

Legendary has already secured approximately 13 billion RMB in funding.

……

As of July.

ByteDance has already completed two rounds of financing.

They raised $3 million in their angel round in April.

They raised another $1 million in their Series A funding round in July.

Wu Zhuo sent people to participate in both rounds of financing, but he didn't invest too much.

Ultimately, his investment in Zhang Yiming was for the purpose of making money.

However, if ByteDance wants to become the behemoth it will become in the future, it certainly cannot rely on him alone.

No matter how powerful he is, he will inevitably dilute his equity stake.

Therefore, Wu Zhuo's goal is not to lead every round of financing, nor is it something he can do.

What he had to do was to invest a certain amount of money in each of the several rounds of financing to ensure that his equity was not diluted too much.

If he wants to ensure that his equity is not diluted too much, he doesn't need to spend much money at all.

It is worth mentioning

Sometimes, once you have money in your hands, there will definitely be many people watching you.

Entrepreneurs and companies seeking investment will come knocking on their door.

Wu Zhuo is a case in point.

Zhang Yiming is somewhat famous in this circle.

Everyone knows that his current ByteDance was started with investment from Wu Zhuo.

So, after word got out that Wu Zhuo liked to invest in entrepreneurs, one entrepreneur after another started coming to him.

To be honest, Wu Zhuo isn't exactly a professional investor.

But as a time traveler, he still had excellent judgment.

He only needs to invest in projects he remembers, and he's unlikely to lose money.

Among the many entrepreneurs who approached him, Wu Zhuo met quite a few and invested in several companies that are known to later generations.

Among them, the most famous is Xiaohongshu.

Its founder, Mao Wenchao, took his project proposal to Wu Zhuo, hoping to secure investment from him.

In the end, Wu Zhuo invested ten million, acquiring a 33% stake.

However, actively waiting for others to come to you generally makes it difficult to find good projects.

This is not the era when the internet was just starting out.

When Jack Ma first founded Alibaba, he was looking for investors everywhere.

He even met with the Xiang family.

It's fair to say that it was extremely difficult for entrepreneurs to find investment during that period.

And now, let's not even talk about the booming internet, which everyone knows about.

The amount of funding available to entrepreneurs is now incomparable to what it was back then.

Nowadays, most entrepreneurs only choose to start a business after they have accumulated a certain amount of capital.

Once the initial stage of entrepreneurship is completed, as long as the project is good, it will generally attract the attention of investors in the industry.

Therefore, generally speaking, there aren't many cases where entrepreneurs take the initiative to approach you.

……

Legendary Entertainment secured 12 billion in funding.

Legendary began its final round of expansion before going public.

Regarding distribution channels, the company has reached a strategic partnership with Wanda, and all future Legendary films will be released through Wanda.

Then, regarding the artists, the company's artist department began to actively recruit, signing Huang Bo, Xu Zheng, and others.

……

At a time when the legend was making frequent big moves.

Wu Zhuo wasn't idle either.

After ByteDance no longer needs money.

He couldn't just leave his hundreds of millions of dollars sitting there; he planned to invest them.

So he contacted Meituan, wanting to invest in their Meituan Movies platform.

Meituan Movies may not be well-known now, but it will be quite famous in the future.

It is Maoyan, which will occupy the largest ticketing market in China in the future.

Wu Zhuo was initially very confident, thinking that Meituan would allow him to participate.

Ultimately, Meituan refused to allow him to participate in the investment.

"Mr. Wu, our company has sufficient funds. We apologize."

If any other suitable investment opportunities come up, we will definitely let you know.

Meituan's Chairman and CEO, Wang Xing, flatly rejected Wu Zhuo.

Wu Zhuo was quite upset after being rejected by Meituan.

They simply asked Zhang Yiming to help them contact some internet workers.

He directly founded a company called Maoyan Movies.

Wu Zhuo only just realized that he had entered a vicious cycle.

They always want to invest in companies that will succeed in later generations.

Indeed, this is a very simple method.

But as mentioned before, many projects don't actually lack funds once they start.

There is no shortage of channels.

The reason ByteDance gave him such a great deal and made him a major shareholder is because of this.

Firstly, he is familiar with Zhang Yiming, as they are relatives. He helped Zhang Yiming start a business when Zhang Yiming was struggling to secure investment.

There is a foundation of trust between the two sides.

Other companies, however, are clearly not necessarily the case.

Unless it's someone like Xiaohongshu who's really short on money.

Otherwise, companies like Meituan Movies would almost never let him get involved.

Therefore, Wu Zhuo simply stopped investing in Meituan Movies.

Anyway, Meitu Movies is only just beginning.

They haven't been separated from the Meituan system yet.

Since that's the case, he simply stole its name, "Cat's Eye," and followed its path, leaving it with nowhere to go.

Wu Zhuo's idea was not a random one.

Rather, it's because he genuinely has that ability.

He himself has hundreds of millions of dollars in hand, while Legend has over a billion dollars.

He is fully capable of finding a technical team to create a ticketing website based on his ideas.

Just do it.

He immediately took action.

You should be familiar with Meituan Movies' business model, right?

On August 6, after Wu Zhuo completed the establishment of Maoyan Company, the technical team recommended by Zhang Yiming also arrived.

The leader was a middle-aged man named Huang Zeyu.

The other party previously served as the chief technology officer at Baofeng Audio-Visual.

Zhang Yiming helped Wu Zhuo poach them.

"It's not difficult to set up a ticketing platform, but it's difficult to operate it. Mr. Wu, you need to think this through carefully."

Huang Zeyu had clearly learned about Wu Zhuo's goals beforehand.

"You don't need to worry about that. There will be someone specifically in charge of this section. You just need to handle the technical aspects."

Compared to other companies, Maoyan is relatively less difficult to operate.

Once the technical issues are resolved, the operations team won't actually need many people.

Wu Zhuo hired a specialist to handle this matter.

The other party was poached by Wu Zhuo from Meituan. His name is Zheng Zhihao, and he has extensive experience in company management.

Of course, it was also expensive; Wu Zhuo paid a full five percent of the shares to poach him.

"That's no problem, but it will probably take at least a month to set up the platform."

Huang Zeyu informed Wu Zhuo of the difficulties in advance.

"We need to get the website up and running as quickly as possible."

Wu Zhuo wanted things to be done quickly.

The slower the process, the larger Meituan Movies' market share will be.

It won't be easy to take it back then.

He must launch the software this year and then achieve results before telecommunications and other companies join Meituan next year.

Only in this way can he attract large companies such as telecommunications companies and prevent Meituan Movies from merging with telecommunications platforms again.

If Meituan Movies succeeds, it will be difficult for Maoyan Movies to beat them.

"We will do it as soon as possible."

Huang Zeyu nodded.

After receiving confirmation, Wu Zhuo met with Zheng again.
I discussed with Zheng Zhihao other work besides technical work.

The first step is cooperation with cinema chains.

There's no need to worry about that.

Wu Zhuo personally met with Wang Jianlin and reached a relevant cooperation agreement with Wanda.

Afterwards, movies released by Wanda Cinemas can be listed on Maoyan with ticket availability and seat selection options.

In fact, this is only beneficial to them, and not harmful.

After all, this is equivalent to having one more ticketing platform.

However, Wang Jianlin truly deserves his reputation as someone who has risen to the position of the richest man.

After listening to Wu Zhuo's explanation of Maoyan Movies' future plans, he immediately expressed his intention to invest.

He was a smart man and saw the potential in Cat's Eye at a glance.

In contrast, Meituan currently only offers ticket sales.

According to Wu Zhuo, Maoyan not only sells movie tickets, but also provides other ticketing services such as concerts.

Moreover, what he values most is that Wu Zhuo is the boss of this company.

Given Wu Zhuo's influence, he will definitely promote Maoyan Movies frequently in the future.

Compared to Meituan, Wu Zhuo clearly has a greater advantage in the entertainment field.

He is a singer and actor, and has a great influence.

After his movie was released, with any promotion, a large number of viewers would buy tickets on Maoyan.

"I'm usually very busy, so I'll need you to take care of things here, Mr. Zheng."

Also, regarding the ticket sales for my fan meeting on September 20th.

Once the software is set up, we can begin.

What is Wu Zhuo's biggest advantage?
Fame, of course.

This is also why Wanda insisted on participating in the investment.

After discussing it with Zheng Zhihao, Wu Zhuo and Zheng Zhihao agreed that the launch of the Maoyan app should leverage his influence.

So Wu Zhuo arranged a fan meeting for himself on the spot.

This fan meeting is no ordinary fan meeting.

It's similar to a concert.

Wu Zhuo directly contacted the Beijing Workers' Stadium to hold a fan meeting by selling tickets.

At that time, all ticket sales for this event, which is called a fan meeting but is actually a concert, will be handled by the Maoyan platform.

In fact, tickets will not be sold offline.

It's all for the purpose of promoting Maoyan (a Chinese online shopping platform).

Besides his own concerts.

It just so happens that both Jay Chou and Wang Leehom have concerts scheduled for the second half of the year.

Wu Zhuo has spoken with them, and their concert ticket sales will be exclusively handled by Maoyan.

Of course, it's not free; you need to pay Maoyan (the website/platform) for it.

This is actually relative to advertising costs.

But this amount of money is nothing.

In order to enable Maoyan to develop faster, Wu Zhuo registered a capital of 30 million yuan.

Later, as the business develops, he may invest more capital.

Of course, it's also possible that he won't need to invest. Once the platform is set up, investors will definitely notice Maoyan.

Take Wanda as an example.

Wu Zhuo has not yet agreed to their investment, but they will definitely participate in the future.

"I will arrange all of this."

However, Mr. Wu, I don't think we need to wait until the software is fully developed before we start promoting it.

We can build the ticketing function first, and then complete the other functions later.

Zheng Zhihao suggested.

"You mean you want to implement a ticketing function first and then start promoting it?"

Wu Zhuo pondered for a while and thought it might be a good idea.

Moreover, there is actually a good opportunity right now.

With Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior" about to be released, perhaps this is an opportunity to start selling tickets through Maoyan.

Speaking of which, although the movie "Wolf Warrior" is Wu Jing's second work after transitioning to directing.

Wu Jing can also be called a new director.

But he did put in a lot of effort for this movie.

He spent 18 months deep in the military, and the entire process took several years.

In addition, the legendary story, meticulously crafted at a cost of nearly 100 million yuan, tells the tale of an ordinary person growing into a lone hero who saves the fate of the country and the nation.

This made the film highly anticipated by audiences after its promotion began.

Wu Zhuo had previously watched the full version of the movie on Legend.

It's not much different from my previous life.

In fact, to some extent, the fact that Legendary invested more money made the visuals more textured.

"Do as you say."

Wu Zhuo agreed to his proposal.

……

After deciding to launch the stripped-down version first, Maoyan immediately took action.

The technical team started working overtime to prepare for the launch of Maoyan.

Meanwhile, Wu Zhuo wasn't idle either.

He began to frequently participate in promoting the Maoyan platform.

Of course, Wu Zhuo couldn't possibly focus all his energy on Maoyan.

He also has many things to manage at Legendary Entertainment.

At the same time, he also had to help promote "Wolf Warrior".

This movie is not a sequel like Lost in Thailand.

Wolf Warrior was a brand new film, and Wu Jing's box office appeal was too weak at that time.

To boost the film's box office, he had to participate in promotion and publicity.

With Legendary Pictures about to be released, Wolf Warrior's release at this juncture has come at a good time.

Because Legend absolutely cannot allow Wolf Warrior to fail.

Even if he were to fail, Legendary would still have to lift it up in order to go public.

Otherwise, if Wolf Warrior fails at the box office, Legendary's stock price will definitely not be able to rise after its IPO.

Conversely, if Wolf Warrior becomes a box office hit, Legendary Pictures will ride the wave of success, and its stock price after listing may surpass that of Enlight Media and Huayi Brothers.

So, for the sake of the film's box office.

Legendary invested a total of 30 million in promotional resources.

What does it mean to have 30 million in publicity resources?
Let's just put it that way.

I walked to the entrance of the movie theater.

The promotional poster for Wolf Warrior is definitely the biggest.

Legend has released trailers on major video platforms and paid video websites to feature the trailers on their homepages.

Then it's on Weibo.

Of the top ten trending topics, five were about Wolf Warrior.

Wu Jing's Ten Years of Hard Work: Wolf Warrior Arrives

China's first special forces film

Wu Jing stated that the role of Leng Feng was originally intended for Wu Zhuo.

Watch Wolf Warrior on Maoyan