Reborn: Billionaire in College

Chapter 163: "True or Fake Kaixin.com" Reappears

Guan Yifeng knocked on the door hurriedly, walked into Chen Pingjiang's office, and handed the documents in his hand to Chen Pingjiang.

"Mr. Chen, I found the information you were looking for."

Chen Pingjiang raised his eyebrows, took the document handed to him by Guan Yifeng and started to browse through it.

Guan Yifeng's voice continued to ring in my ears: "At the beginning of the month, Cheng Binghao resigned from Sina. It is said that he rejected the position of Sina's chief technology officer and resolutely resigned. After resigning, he founded 'BJ Kaixinren Information Technology Co., Ltd.' with a technical team of 5 people."

"Okay, I get it, go get busy."

After Guan Yifeng left, Chen Pingjiang fell into deep thought.

First, Xiaonei.com started a new round of financing ahead of schedule, and then Cheng Binghao resigned early to establish Kaixin.com.

There were still many opponents, but under the encouragement of the butterfly wings, they all advanced their next moves.

In its past life, Xiaonei.com should have completed two rounds of financing in March and April of the next year, especially receiving a $3 million investment from SoftBank at the end of April.

Chen Pingjiang and SoftBank failed to reach an agreement, so he was not surprised that SoftBank turned back to Xiaonei.com.

Cheng Binghao's side is interesting. Kaixin.com should have been established in February next year, but I didn't expect it to be established so much earlier.

There is a term in Go called "flying knife", which refers to a complex and unexpected move.

Chen Pingjiang has already prepared everything for Cheng Binghao.

——True or false Kaixin.com.

I believe Cheng Binghao will be very happy at that time.

In his previous life, Chen Yizhou used this trick to disgust Cheng Binghao.

The background at that time was——

As early as the founding of Kaixin.com, the Kaixin domain name was registered by an American who offered a price of about 20 RMB. However, due to Kaixin.com's tight financial situation at the time, it registered the Kaixin001 domain name, which eventually left hidden dangers.

After seeing the development momentum of Kaixin.com, Fu Zhengjun, CEO of another domestic social networking site 9158.com, bought the domain name back from the Americans. According to an Internet insider who also wanted to buy the domain name, Fu Zhengjun paid about 100 million yuan for it.

Fu Zhengjun then took the initiative to contact Kaixin.com, hoping to exchange the kaixin domain name for 2% of Kaixin.com shares without any cash demand, but was rejected by Kaixin.com. According to the market value of Kaixin.com at the time, the kaixin domain name was worth more than 400 million yuan.

Shortly after being rejected by Kaixin.com, someone who was very sincere about the kaixin domain name appeared and approached Fu Zhengjun again and again, and offered a high price. However, Fu Zhengjun did not know that the other party was Chen Yizhou.

Chen Yizhou bought the kaixin domain name through an intermediary, who claimed at the time that it was a gaming company that did business similar to Kaixin, but more entertainment-oriented. It was only later that Fu Zhengjun learned the true identity of the investor.

It was rumored at the time that Chen Yizhou spent 600 million yuan to buy the kaixin domain name.

What did Chen Yizhou do after getting the domain name?

After his proposal to acquire Kaixin.com failed, Chen Yizhou set up a 'fake' Kaixin.com that was almost identical to the 'real' Kaixin.com in terms of Chinese name, service functions, website layout, page settings and even domain name.

As it was difficult to distinguish the real Kaixin.com from the fake one, the upward trend of registered users of the “genuine” Kaixin.com slowed down significantly, and a large number of users were misled to join the “fake Kaixin.com”.

The 'real' Kaixin.com was hijacked by the 'fake' Kaixin.com and its 3400 million registered users were eventually transferred to Xiaonei.com by Chen Yizhou.

In the subsequent lawsuit, Chen Yizhou only paid 40 yuan in compensation.

But these two are younger brothers now.

Since Chen Pingjiang had taken away the "Renren" name from Chen Yizhou, he could naturally turn the tables and take advantage of Cheng Binghao.

Chen Pingjiang handed the matter over to Miao Bingwei and asked him to follow up seriously and make sure there were no mistakes.

Miao Bingwei was a little confused, and looked at Chen Pingjiang and asked, "Is this kaixin.com domain name important to us?"

Chen Pingjiang did not hide it from him. "It's very important. The domain name should be in the hands of an American now. Go buy it. Then, clone a copy according to the website layout and page settings of kaixin001. Don't put it online. Keep it in your hands. I will find you when necessary. The most important thing is that this matter must be kept confidential."

We are all smart people, and some things don't need to be said too directly.

Miao Bingwei's mind turned and he roughly understood Chen Pingjiang's intention. He had to give him a thumbs up: "Boss, you are really shady."

Chen Pingjiang curled his lips: "The business world is like a battlefield."

What you think is a business war vs. the real business war. The real business war is often plain and simple.

After a group's CFO was fired, he broke into the office with a sword and locked himself in for three days.

After the founder of a certain online game company divorced his wife, he rushed into the office to grab the official seal and pinned it to his belt while sleeping.

The former chairman of a certain group climbed over the wall and sneaked into the rival factory to take secret photos.

A 60-year-old chairman of the board injured the company's general manager by swinging a hammer in the office building.

In addition, there are those who killed the opponent's money tree with boiling water; replaced the opponent's God of Wealth with Ultraman; broke the opponent's coffee machine; replaced the opponent's work meal with West Lake vinegar fish; used beauty traps and handsome man traps; defecated in front of the opponent's door for several days in a row; and scratched the opponent's bicycle seat.

Nothing is impossible, only unimaginable.

In the afternoon, news came from Shu Mang.

Sequoia Capital’s first funding of US$2000 million arrived.

It is necessary to explain here that large amounts of financing are rarely paid all at once to an enterprise. Investment institutions need to control the installment investment of funds based on the company's business progress and actual capital consumption in order to achieve the purpose of controlling risks.

To put it simply, the money will be given in stages according to the budget and execution status. Even if your company goes bankrupt, the unspent money must be returned.

The investment agreement signed between Chen Pingjiang and Sequoia Capital clearly defined the payment terms and payment schedule of the financing funds to ensure the smooth arrival of the financing funds.

Chen Pingjiang had to take advantage of the fact that the campus network and QQ space had not reacted yet to catch them off guard, so he had to integrate more.

It is rare to find a financing party as strong as Chen Pingjiang. Generally speaking, venture capital institutions will set up various repurchase methods for their own interests and to reduce their own risks.

For example, the live streaming platform run by the son of a certain richest man had to pay compensation if it went bankrupt because it triggered the repurchase conditions and signed a personal joint and several obligation.

Many companies already have repurchase clauses in their Series A financing, which are subject to "completing a qualified IPO/M&A within a specified period" or "achieving specific business progress/operating performance conditions." Of course, the feasibility of repurchase clauses in early financing is another matter. The specified period of the repurchase clause may also be postponed again and again as the financing rounds increase. If you cannot wait for an IPO/M&A exit or a repurchase, you can exit by transferring old shares.

When designing repurchase terms, most investors will try their best to include the founder in the scope of the repurchase obligor. Only by tying the founder down can they avoid the founder escaping and starting a new business one day.

For repurchase clauses that bind the founders and have no upper limit on repurchase liability, whether the repurchase clauses are implemented in a specific project depends on which party has stronger voice.

In this round of financing, Chen Pingjiang is clearly the stronger party.

Even if Sequoia Capital doesn't invest, there are still 79 companies waiting in line.

Liu Qiangdong, who was in a weak position in the early stages of his business, not only made bets against investment institutions.

It is true that some investors like to gamble, but if you are not related to them, why would they be willing to bet real money on you? Is there something wrong with your face?

Many entrepreneurs naively believe that their projects are good, with high returns, low risks and high success rates, so investors will definitely be willing to bet on them, or even that investors should be willing to bet on themselves.

But the reality is just the opposite. From the investor's perspective, since you are so confident and believe that your project is foolproof, you should add various additional clauses.

Performance commitment, valuation commitment, dividend commitment, listing commitment, delegation of directors and supervisors, equity pledge, joint management of seals, certificates and U-shields, veto power, repurchase of principal plus earnings, joint and several liability guarantee of your parents, wife, children and entire family, mortgage guarantee of your parents, wife, children and entire family, house, car, money and various movable and immovable properties, all of them are included.

Since you said you have absolute confidence in the project, then in your eyes, there will definitely be no problems with the project. As long as there are no problems with the project, these clauses will not be triggered even if they are written, so why can't they be written?
So, the essence is that investors are unlikely to make concessions on terms just because your project is good. This is especially true for early-stage projects and for unfamiliar investors.

Of course, there are strong financing parties. For example, in the round of financing in 18, DJI openly and forcefully required all potential investors to participate in several rounds of bidding, and investors also had to pay a deposit. They forced all investors to compete with each other, and then they selected the strongest and best conditions to sign a contract.

Even though Chen Pingjiang was so strong and rejected all the requirements of Sequoia Capital, considering the high financing amount in Series A, the basic repurchase clause was inevitable. However, Chen Pingjiang would not sign the personal joint and several obligations without even thinking about it.

There are two investment agreements, namely the capital increase agreement and the shareholder agreement. The former mainly covers the contents related to the capital increase, including valuation, the ratio of pre-investment and post-investment, the conditions of delivery, etc. The latter mainly covers the rights and interests enjoyed by investors as shareholders.

The preemptive right is stipulated, that is, when the overall sale of the company reaches a satisfactory price or conditions, the investor, as a minority shareholder, hopes to exit through the overall sale.

A repurchase right is stipulated if the listing is not completed within 5 years or the company or shareholders seriously breach the contract (which is actually difficult to trigger).

In addition, the two parties also signed anti-dilution clauses, priority subscription clauses, priority liquidation clauses, founder restriction clauses, most-favored-nation treatment clauses, and stipulated board seats.

In short, the 5000 million US dollars was not given by Sequoia Capital for free. As the founder, Chen Pingjiang also needs to fulfill many obligations.

No matter how strong you are, you have to abide by the rules, otherwise who will play with you in the future?

　I saw someone asking questions yesterday, so I expanded on this chapter and wrote a little bit. There are two more chapters to come, so you can read them when you wake up tomorrow.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)