America's No. 1 financial conglomerate

Chapter 435 Cuts Off Amazon's Escape Route

Massim's eyes narrowed suddenly, his sharp gaze falling on Ernst like a precise searchlight, a hint of suspicion flickering in his pupils.

He stared intently at Ernst's facial expression, noticing that the man maintained a calm and composed demeanor, neither avoiding his gaze nor showing any sign of unease or guilt.

Massim thought to himself that arguing about who should go first was pointless.

The initiative is now entirely in Ernst's hands. Knowing Ernst as he does, he knows that if Ernst doesn't give in, he will be the one to compromise in the end, and dragging it out is just a waste of time.

"According to my information, Amazon is pushing forward with an acquisition plan, with a price tag as high as two hundred million dollars," Massim said slowly. "I think this company must be very important to Amazon, even strategically significant; otherwise, Amazon wouldn't have offered such a high price, much less chosen a full acquisition."

Two hundred million dollars is enough to leverage many promising projects. Amazon would not have made such a decision if it were not determined to acquire this company.

Ernst frowned slightly and nodded.

As Massim said, although Amazon has just completed another large round of financing and has a lot of cash reserves, it has too many areas to plan for, and it needs to invest a lot of money in almost every sector. It's as if it wants its cash to multiply.

The fact that Amazon is willing to spend $200 million to acquire a company at this time is enough to prove the value of the company and could very well directly affect Amazon's future industrial competitiveness.

With this in mind, Ernst's curiosity was fully piqued, and he eagerly pressed for an answer, "What's the name of this company?"

Massim's eyes flickered slightly, as if he were recalling something, before he finally spoke, "I remember it was a male name, something like Alexa?"

"Alexa?" Ernst suddenly realized.

No wonder Amazon was willing to spend $200 million to acquire a company; it turns out that its target was this company.

Ernst was fairly familiar with this company because he had used it in his previous life, and his company had also purchased its services.

"You know this company?" Massim asked curiously, seeing Ernst's knowing look.

However, he quickly smiled in relief. Ernst was the son of the internet; how could he not know?

"Alexa is an American internet company founded in 1996. It has a tool called the Alexa Toolbar. Its main function is to be embedded in web pages on the internet and use web crawling technology to collect data on each page visited by the user and related browsing information in real time," Ernst explained to him.

"This information will be sent to Alexa's database. After integration, Alexa can then compile and rank this data and information, and publish these rankings on the Internet."

"For example, market share, visit duration, browsing path, click frequency, etc. However, these data are all general and are only released once every one or two months. To obtain more detailed data, you need to purchase services from Alexa."

Although Massim didn't fully understand specialized internet jargon like web scraping, he quickly grasped the core logic of Alexa's business: "An information consulting company in the internet industry?"

"You can understand it that way," Ernst nodded slightly. "However, compared to traditional information consulting companies, Alexa has a stronger monopoly in the industry."

"On the one hand, in the niche field of Internet information consulting, there are relatively few competitors in the market. Alexa has accumulated a large amount of user data and industry resources, forming a high market barrier."

"On the other hand, Alexa's business is highly dependent on technological support. Its core technologies for data collection, processing and analysis are highly professional and unique. Other companies wanting to replicate it face significant technological obstacles in catching up."

However, the information that Massim brought about regarding Amazon's acquisition of Alexa is really useful. If Amazon successfully acquires Alexa, then Amazon can leverage Alexa's massive traffic data and professional competitive analysis capabilities to accurately grasp consumer needs and market trends, thereby strategically positioning itself in niche market segments and channeling limited funds into categories that can generate faster revenue.

Ernst fell into deep thought, pondering a solution for Alexa.

Acquisition or suppression?

The Alexa toolbar is now deeply embedded in Google Chrome, which has accumulated a large amount of data and built a huge and comprehensive data model.

If Google chooses to suppress Alexa, it would need to shut down the embedding of the Alexa toolbar in its browser, cutting off Alexa's main source of data, and develop a similar tool.

However, Ernst prefers to compete with Amazon and acquire Alexa rather than suppress it.

No matter how much pressure is applied, the vast amount of data models that Alexa has accumulated cannot be erased. These data models contain enormous commercial value, and Ernst will not allow this data to fall into Amazon's hands.

Furthermore, from the perspective of technological accumulation and industry experience, rebuilding a similar company requires starting from scratch to build a technical team, improve the business system, and accumulate user data. This process is not only time-consuming but also involves too many uncontrollable risks.

Acquiring Alexa would allow Amazon to directly access its mature technology platform and massive user data resources, and most importantly, it would cut off Amazon's escape route.

"It seems the information I brought you is indeed quite valuable." Massim had been watching Ernst's expression closely, and he was now certain of the value of the information he had provided.

Ernst snapped out of his reverie and was about to respond when Massim spoke first, his face clearly wary and his tone tinged with caution: "You'd better not make any more excuses. I know this information will be very useful to you."

"Don't worry." Ernst couldn't help but find it a little funny looking at Massim's wary expression. He gently shook his head to indicate, "I mean what I say."

Ernst's gaze fell on Massim's face, and he said, word by word, "A valuation of $150 billion is the most sincerity I can offer."

Ernst felt that he had truly shown the utmost sincerity. Wall Street had been trying to get iTech to start fundraising. Whether it was Cook or himself, they would always encounter people asking about it when they attended events, but each time they were scared off by Ernst's $150 billion valuation.

So far, the highest offer Ernst has heard is $110 billion, but after this iTech press conference, the valuation will definitely increase significantly.

Even at $150 billion, many institutions on Wall Street would probably compromise, but times have changed, and Ernst wouldn't agree to that price.

The $150 billion valuation offered to the Boston consortium was truly a friendly price; considering Ivy's net profit, this valuation was less than ten times its price-to-earnings ratio.

Cook remained silent upon hearing the valuation; Ernst's offer was in line with his desired price.

Massim glanced at him, then lowered his head.

The valuation was still quite high, but he also knew that Ernst had indeed given him a friendly price.

He had heard about Wall Street's interest in investing in AI Technology, and he was quite certain that if Wall Street institutions came knocking again after today, Ernst would definitely demand an exorbitant price increase.

"Okay, I want 10% of the shares, to have all the Series A shares."

There's no need to discuss pre-investment or post-investment valuation; at Ernst, there's no such thing as post-investment valuation.

This has almost become a default rule in the investment circle. When discussing financing with other companies, pre- and post-investment valuations become the point of contention between the two parties, but in the case of Ernst's company, there is no need to even mention it.

If you have a way, then go for it; if you don't, then just bear with it.

If you don't want to put up with it, turn left when you go out.

Thank you.

Compared to the three people involved with AI Technology, Cicero unconsciously swallowed when he heard Massim nod in agreement.

Is this Ernst?

Is this Ernst's company?

In the upper echelons of America, various legends about Ernst have always circulated, especially about his companies' fundraising efforts. Whether it's the sheer size of the amount raised, Ernst's assertive attitude during negotiations, or the humiliated state of those usually high-and-mighty investment institutions who dared not utter a word, these are all topics of heated discussion among people from all walks of life at parties.

Cicero didn't pay much attention to the $40 billion valuation Ernst had given him, because anyone with a brain knew that was impossible and no investment institution would accept it.

Even now that Ernst has lowered the valuation to $150 billion, Cicero is still somewhat astonished.

That's the valuation from our Series A funding round!

In the history of American business, has there ever been a company with a Series A valuation of $150 billion?

Let alone a Series A valuation of $15 billion, even companies with a Series A valuation exceeding $150 billion are extremely rare in the entire history of American business. It is difficult to find many such cases throughout the entire development of American commerce.

But Maxim agreed after only a moment's thought.

He didn't know that it wasn't that Massim wanted to agree, but that he had no choice but to agree.

As the first consortium to partner with Ernst, the Boston consortium failed to keep pace with Ernst's growing wealth.

Aside from making a fortune from investing in Leap Games, Ernst's other businesses in the Boston consortium did not receive any profits.

Especially Google; now, the Boston consortium is so horrified by Google's $40 billion valuation in its Series B round that they feel like banging their heads against a wall.

At the time, I thought the valuation was ridiculously high, but now I wish I could buy a pill to undo my mistake.

What does it mean to be a Microsoft-level entity?

Just a year and a half ago, it was worth only $40 billion.

The emergence of Ixtech has shown the Boston Consortium the possibility of creating a second Google, believing that Ixtech can become a behemoth in the consumer electronics industry.

The most important factor was the substantial returns from their previous investment in Leap Games, which gave the Boston consortium sufficient confidence.

With the current stock price of Leap Games, the Boston consortium has netted over a billion dollars, which is enough to offset any losses incurred with iTech.

It was based on a comprehensive consideration of these factors that Massim, after a brief period of thought, decisively agreed to Ernst's proposed valuation of $150 billion.