King of Capital

The oversized mattress in the master bedroom of the yacht was as soft as a hovercraft, which made Xie Jingxing dizzy and vomit all night. The next day, he was kicked off the bed because he could no longer squeeze anything out.

Before leaving, Zhou Fenglan expressed his desire to buy Airbus' latest A350 and convert it into a private jet. The whole thing costs million euros, enough to buy a mid-to-lower-level Premier League team.

Xie Jingxing really couldn't understand why a university teacher like her would need a civil airliner, but apart from scolding her as a spendthrift woman, he could only wave goodbye with a reluctant expression on his face and rush to the United States to make more money.

April showers swept through San Francisco, and a Gulfstream business jet landed on the runway, atomizing raindrops to form a water-colored curtain wall.

The airflow lifted the hem of her knee-length windbreaker, her long burgundy hair fluttered, and the mixed-race woman had been waiting for a long time with an umbrella in her hand.

The black cars and black umbrellas behind her create a deep sense of order, which is a primitive aesthetic that can be appreciated without training.

“Your speech has been extended to 45 minutes. People mainly want to hear about the merger of Didi and Uber, and the potential opportunities in the Chinese venture capital market.”

Choi Yun-soo reported the latest situation seriously, tilting the umbrella in his hand and letting half of his shoulder get wet.

Xie Jingxing raised his arms and spread out his palms. The raindrops fell on his palms and felt slightly cool. He stopped and looked back in the direction he came from.

Two hunting rifles were hung overlapping each other at the entrance of the club villa, a stuffed deer head was placed on the table against the wall below the hunting rifles, and bottles of cheap Maker's Mark bourbon were placed in a row next to the deer head.

Men and women are equal, each gets a cup - a middle-aged white man wearing high boots and a cowboy hat repeats the admission permit in a low voice, no different from the first visit three years ago.

"I once again visited the home of Silicon Valley venture capitalists and brought $60 billion in fundraising shares from China."

Xie Jingxing leaned forward slightly, holding the microphone with one hand, and said slowly: "My colleague reminded me that I have 45 minutes to speak. You want to hear about the Didi-Uber merger case, and you want to hear me promote what areas Grapefruit Capital will invest its money in."

“There is no doubt that this is necessary, but before we talk about this, I can’t wait to share with you that the size of my first US dollar fund three years ago was 2 million.”

He raised his glass high towards the audience and said, "Congratulations! You are witnessing the growth of a legendary fund and have the opportunity to participate in it."

The whole audience was in an uproar, with friendly laughter, frowns and head shakes, mixed with sparse applause.

This is Silicon Valley, where there is no shortage of sensationalists and daring people. How you view it depends entirely on your personal vision, but you will always be impressed by one model and be willing to invest heavily in it.

The young Chinese man on the stage is currently very popular. Even if he defecates a large amount on the spot, there will still be a lot of people waving checks and bidding to buy it.

"How does the saying go, 'Don't stop until you say something shocking? If the kid who has tapped into the dividends of mobile Internet can achieve success in calculations, there will be many legends here," Mark Anderson commented with his arms folded.

Mark Mellon stood nearby, lowering his head to avoid the glare of the lights: "It is said that he has just set a fundraising record of not too small a scale in China's venture capital industry."

"So he rushed to Silicon Valley to be a fat sheep. Just wait and see. The Internet dividend is his protective color. When he can no longer earn excess returns for US dollar investors, there will be no smooth sailing. Trouble will come one after another."

Mark Anderson lowered his voice with contempt: "He has never really integrated here, and he will never be able to in the future. We are the ones who belong here."

"Hey, don't talk about this here." Mark Mellon frowned and reminded.

Mark Anderson sneered and said, "OK, I wish you a happy cooperation."

…………

The speech at the Investor's Home is just to let more people know that Xiyou is raising funds. It still requires individual meetings with potential LPs, and every step such as roadshows and due diligence is indispensable.

Xie Jingxing announced his arrival to the mainstream dollar in a high-profile manner, and then went to Menlo Park without stopping. The Grapefruit US office had already gathered the entire fundraising team and was waiting to start work.

Choi Yun-soo comes from the large client wealth management department of Wells Fargo Bank. His work ability and network resources are acceptable, but they are far from enough to support the fundraising scale of US$60 billion.

A partner in the Los Angeles office of Deloitte, together with Union Bank and Goldman Sachs, formed a core fundraising team from Silicon Valley to New York. These people were able to extract a total of hundreds of millions of yuan in commissions, so they had ample motivation to fight for the interests of Grapefruit.

After several comparisons and selections, and a fierce debate at the meeting, five potential cornerstone LPs were finally selected.

Xie Jingxing first had to meet with the investment decision-making committee members of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. This Canadian insurance fund, which is particularly active in investing hundreds of billions of dollars in China, has prepared an investment quota of no less than one billion US dollars for the Chinese venture capital market this year.

Then there's the California Public Employees' Retirement System, an even wealthier behemoth.

They have established investment strategies exclusively for the Chinese market, but are also worried that changes in international relations will affect their brand reputation. They are regarded as traitors to the United States at a glance, as they do not invest in their own country but give money to the Chinese. This kind of public opinion pressure is common all over the world.

Xie Jingxing could understandably not comment. He arranged to receive the two teams in a row, and in the blink of an eye, the sky outside the window had become completely dark.

The remaining three potential cornerstone LPs are all in New York. In any case, the dominance of Wall Street's traditional banking industry is difficult to shake, and funds from all over the world are gathered here, so he needs to take the initiative to visit them.

"Boss, this is Zhou Kaixuan from Horizons Ventures calling. She wants to invite you to dinner."

On the way back to San Francisco, Choi Yun-soo sat in the co-pilot seat, covered the microphone of his mobile phone with his hand, twisted his body and turned back to report softly.

Xie Jingxing glanced at Chen Xi beside him. She shook her head silently to indicate that it was not convenient to change the dinner schedule at the last minute.

Cui Yunxiu raised his eyebrows helplessly and pointed to the phone: "She wants to talk to you directly."

"Hopefully it's a surprise and not something else."

Xie Jingxing simply took the phone and chatted for a few words, and couldn't help but chuckle to himself. It was really a pleasant surprise that a big dog owner from the Middle East took the initiative to come to him.

He immediately ordered Chen Xi to postpone his meeting with Mark Mellon and change the destination to meet Zhou Kaixuan.

This elder sister, who is known as Li Ka-shing's confidante, failed in her first attempt to compete for the lead investment rights in Zoom. She then took the opportunity to invite Xie Jingxing to pay attention to venture capital project opportunities in developed regions such as the Middle East, mainly Israel.

Now he is a venture capitalist from the Arab world. One has to admit that Mr. Li is far-sighted and often smells the fishy smell first.

"Solina, long time no see."

According to the address, we arrived at a street-facing villa on the hillside where we could see the sea. Xie Jingxing suppressed his speculation and greeted politely.

Zhou Kaixuan responded with a warm hug and jokingly said, "We just met this morning." "You were at the Investor's House this morning?" Xie Jingxing was speechless.

“I follow your Zhihu account. At the beginning of last month, I saw your article announcing the dual-currency fund fundraising plan. I am looking forward to your visit to Silicon Valley.”

Zhou Kaixuan gestured for him to come in, and explained as he walked: "I feel like many of my colleagues in Silicon Valley feel the same way as me. The facts have proven that it is worth the wait, and your representative work is convincing."

The two of them entered the villa and went straight to the dining room to sit opposite each other. Without any distraction, the waiter brought hot chickpea soup to the table, followed by crispy vegetable salad, eggplant puree, and roasted lamb leg.

There was a waiter for each dish, all of them were wearing white robes and white cloth on their heads. The smell of money was so strong.

"At the same time as Didi is acquiring Uber China, Uber Global is promoting its largest financing since its establishment, and the investor is confirmed to be the long-rumored PIF." Zhou Kaixuan seemed to have a long story to say.

Xie Jingxing was not in a hurry. He picked up the knife and fork and easily removed the bones from the lamb leg. The outside was roasted until golden brown, and the inside was soft and juicy, trembling with oil and full of appetite.

Zhou Kaixuan observed with interest and continued, “PIF indirectly learned about the Didi-Uber China merger during its due diligence on Uber, and thus became interested in you and your Grapefruit Capital. They believe that you represent the characteristics of the Chinese venture capital industry to a great extent.”

"Characteristics?" Xie Jingxing didn't understand.

Zhou Kaixuan pondered the organizational language: "For example, in a one-man show, you should know that US dollar LPs pursue long-term stability, but our domestic venture capital institutions with good performance often have only one core."

From finance to law, accounting, and hospitals, all walks of life in Europe and the United States have mastered the use of the partnership system. The company can continue to operate without any party, and the long-term stability is relatively high.

Read the error-free version at 69shuba! 6=9+shu_ba is the first to publish this novel.

This advantage is magnified by the seven to ten year lock-up period of venture capital funds.

The situation in China is completely different. A well-established person like Cao Yi seized the opportunity to set up his own business, while the negative example Tang Man was nominally a founding partner, but in fact he was content to take second place.

Either leave and raise the flag or become a concubine, whether it is Sequoia, Hillhouse, Jinshajiang or Grapefruit, there can only be one voice. US dollar LPs hate this kind of one-man show, but they each occupy the absolute leading position in the subdivided track.

"It is well known that Chinese entrepreneurs only want to actively merge with others, not passively, and are even unwilling to discuss equal mergers and acquisitions. Objectively speaking, this is very common, and is deeply influenced by the unification ideas of the Qin Emperor and Han Emperor."

Zhou Kaixuan half-jokingly sighed, and went back to the point and continued: "I remember it was the year before last, you called yourself a 'personal hero' at the Economic Person of the Year awards ceremony. This statement basically summarizes what I want to express."

“Since you want to invest in a market that goes against the rules of traditional industries, then choose the most extreme one.” Xie Jingxing concluded thoughtfully.

Zhou Kaixuan added without comment: "If you want to invest in a market whose operating mechanism is not mature enough, then choose the best people in this market."

In the final analysis, the domestic venture capital market has been in an unstable state for a long time. Accompanied by the beautiful song "My door is always open", the US dollar LPs came here while eating hot pot and riding on the train, laughing all the way.

I never expected that everything was fine when I came here, but I can't go back.

There are more than a dozen names of regulatory agencies that are confused when translated into English. Anyone can easily block mergers and acquisitions or listing transactions.

Faced with the educational method of "easy admission and strict graduation", everyone will reflect deeply and wake up. No matter why personal heroism that violates market laws on a large scale can succeed, you can't go wrong by betting on successful investors!

It’s a bit like early-stage venture capital, investing in people rather than projects.

“I benefited a lot from it. It was the first time I knew that Middle Eastern capital looked at the domestic market from a more traditional perspective than traditional US dollar LPs.”

After nearly an hour of dinner, Xie Jingxing finally gave a rather impolite comment.

Zhou Kaixuan nodded in agreement: "In the past few decades, all the Middle Eastern sovereign funds have unilaterally bet on Europe and the United States. Now their financial investments have to break away from the US system to allocate global needs. The domestic market cannot be ignored, but they really don't understand this place."

"I don't understand them either." Xie Jingxing smoothed the napkin and put it back in place.

"There is an information gap between the two sides. There are positive filters and negative filters. After all, we cannot force people from the Middle East who speak English with a strong Arabic accent to deeply feel the rapid growth of the domestic market."

Zhou Kaixuan stopped there and changed the subject, saying, "But the information barrier will soon be broken. Middle Eastern sovereign funds are eager for emerging energy and advanced manufacturing industries, and China just happens to need funds to inject vitality into these industries."

"The business environment in the Middle East values ​​'sincerity'. Businesses of all sizes prefer face-to-face talks and tend to work with old friends. I can help you get to know each other." She slowly threw out the main course.

Among the top ten sovereign funds in the world, four are in the Middle East, managing funds of over US$3 trillion.

News reports exaggeratedly claimed that the Middle Eastern tycoons were using dollars to force Wall Street to surrender, just like the headlines in the 1980s when the Statue of Liberty was covered in a kimono.

Ding Ding's name was known far and wide, and Zhou Kaixuan didn't believe that Xie Jingxing had no feelings at all.

A single man and a single woman, who were several dozen years apart in age, made an appointment to have dinner together in a private villa and asked a white-robed chef to prepare Middle Eastern food.

Excluding the possibility of scenario play, Xie Jingxing looked up at the ceiling and raised a finger: "Solina, are the PIF people in the study?"

"Do you want them to be there?" Zhou Kaixuan kicked the ball back.

Xie Jingxing completely ignored him and continued, "Why would PIF want to invest a large amount directly in Uber and attract investment to allow Uber to vigorously develop its business in the Middle East?"

"Yes, I just mentioned that the birth of emerging energy, advanced manufacturing, and smart cars in the Middle East is a very tempting story." Zhou Kaixuan answered frankly.

PIF, the full name of Saudi Public Investment Fund, has served as the country's sovereign passive investment holding platform entity for the past few decades until the new king ascended the throne last year and transformed it into the largest sovereign investment fund.

Handing it over to his own son for management will make it easier to cooperate with the "Vision 2030" governance concept he proposed.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks. As always, the energy country is anxious. New energy, advanced manufacturing, medical health and the like are all centered around the purpose of attracting investment.

The financial investment rate of return is secondary. The key lies in whether the invested company can conduct business locally, provide jobs, pay taxes, and bring in actual industrial resources, which is no different from domestic industrial guidance funds.

The so-called characteristics are just empty talk. Xie Jingxing believes that the reason why PIF took the initiative to throw itself into his arms is that he holds a large semiconductor industry fund worth hundreds of billions of yuan and the domestic new energy industry policy is booming.

"I have to go back and discuss with our team so as not to affect the overall fundraising pace."

He apologized and said goodbye, ending the conversation. He said he would not eat dinner tonight to lose weight. If you want to discuss cooperation, please don't play tricks. (End of this chapter)