Reborn: Billionaire in College

Chapter 247: Everyone buys financing, and the enemy steals the house

"How many shares do you plan to sell this time?" When Shen Nanpeng heard that Renrengou, owned by Chen Pingjiang, wanted to raise funds, he ran over eagerly, along with more than a dozen investment institutions of various types.

"I still have 85% of the shares. I plan to dilute them by 15% in this round, remove 20% of the option pool, and keep 50% for myself."

"Hey, you're usually so stingy, how come you diluted it so much all of a sudden? It's not like your style."

Chen Pingjiang smiled and said, "It will take at least half a year for me to cash out after Renren goes public, and I can only cash out a little at a time. The money I have now and even the money I will cash out in the future will have to fill the hole in Orange Mobile. Mobile phones and chips are money-eating beasts. I threw in hundreds of millions and couldn't even make a splash."

Shen Nanpeng laughed: "You are too ambitious. You want to build your own factory and invest a large amount of money in research and development. You even dare to make chips. I don't know what to say to you."

Chen Pingjiang was right. It would be better for Orange Mobile and Chip Company not to mess with the investors. Investors only look at profits and will never agree to you spending large amounts of money on research and development. In their view, that is a waste of money.

From this, it is understandable why Huawei and DJI do not go public.

"The money raised by releasing 15% in this round is probably still not enough. Will there be a third round?" asked Shen Nanpeng.

"We'll talk about it later. Don't keep thinking about me here."

"I'm thinking about you right now. Wouldn't it be stupid not to make money?"

Even during Renren's second round of financing, Chen Pingjiang played a trick and was so powerful that investment institutions, seeing the profitability, still swarmed around him like flies.

There is no way, Chen Pingjiang’s credibility is too strong.

The sharp rise in Renren's stock price on its first day of listing is a clear proof of this.

Half a month later, Renrengou announced that it had raised a total of 4.5 million US dollars in its just-concluded Series C financing.

This round was led by Sequoia Capital, followed by General Atlantic, IDG, and Temasek.

The pre-financing valuation was US$30 billion.

This valuation was debated for a long time and no one could reach a consensus. Chen Pingjiang believed that as the leader of the group buying group, a valuation of US$35 billion was appropriate for Renrengou.

However, investors said that the group buying war is far from over and anything can happen. They are only willing to accept a valuation of US$25 billion.

In the end, everyone took a step back and the valuation was determined to be 30 billion.

These investment institutions are not wrong. The environments faced by group buying and Renren are still different.

Renren is an SNS. At that time, no big company was willing to compete with Renren, and the Internet spread information at a fast speed.

But group buying is different. Didn’t Lashou.com, the star player in the first half, ultimately fail in its IPO?

In addition, Baidu, Tencent and even Alibaba have already chosen their battle horses, so no one knows how the group buying will eventually turn out.

The outside world is not so sensitive to this financing news, and everyone has become somewhat accustomed to it now.

If Chen Pingjiang doesn't make some noise, can he still be called Chen Pingjiang?

4.5 million US dollars is not a small amount of money. When Gao Songbin received the first payment, he felt his back straightened a little.

The recent group buying battle is very intense. I have no money and I feel really panicked.

The shameless Meituan and Dianping have even begun to openly use money to deal with merchants, with the aim of undermining the foundation of Renrengou.

"Meituan just held a city manager conference last month, and immediately started organizing a merchant conference this month. It's quite a big deal." Gao Songbin said: "They also raised money some time ago, and now they are very rich. They are poaching our merchant resources everywhere. Some high-quality merchants even paid 100 million yuan in advance, and then signed exclusive agreements again after poaching them."

"Dianping and other websites are following suit."

The number of group buying websites has dropped from over 5,000 to only a few hundred, but each of the remaining ones is very strong, and burning money for subsidies is becoming more and more common.

"We can't retreat now. We have to fight them for every inch of land." Chen Pingjiang said, "Now is not like before. We can still let them fight first. We have already entered the second half. If we don't charge forward, we will have to pack up and leave."

"They hold merchant conferences, so do we. They subsidize merchants, so do we. We don't let any one go."

"Now the competition is about who can hold out longer and who can afford to burn more money. If they can hold on to this step, Meituan and Dianping will either merge or close down. There is no third way."

Not only in the business sector, but also in the buildings of various companies, advertisements are everywhere.

What’s funny is that because Renrengou has been deeply rooted in the first- and second-tier markets and has the highest market share, it has placed all of its building advertisements in third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities, which are its weak points.

Meituan Dianping is doing the opposite. It wants to break into Renrengou's territory and is desperately advertising in first- and second-tier cities.

…………

Conference hall of Hilton Hotel in Shanghai.

The Shanghai city managers of Meituan, Baidu Nuomi and Dianping gathered together.

Yuan Zhiyu, the city manager of Meituan, coughed and said, "According to our inside information, Alibaba will hold a large online promotion on November 11. I think this date is a good one. I called everyone here to suggest that the three of us should join together to hold a larger event on that day. We can take advantage of this event to catch Renrengou off guard and try to grab as many users as possible from them."

Liao Bochen, manager of Baidu Nuomi, and Wang Shi, city manager of Dianping, looked at each other and said, "Renrengou is so big, how big a campaign do we have to do to change the market?" Yuan Zhiyu said, "Shanghai has been almost turned into an iron bucket by Renrengou. It is very difficult for us to expand our business. Rather than being slowly exhausted like this, we might as well take the opportunity to muddy the waters and get as much meat as we can. Otherwise, we will have no chance at all."

"How much effort do you plan to put into promotion?"

Yuan Zhiyu smiled and said, "The authority I have obtained is a 50% discount on the entire store. The merchants will subsidize part of it, and our company will subsidize part of it."

Liao Bochen and Wang Shi secretly smacked their lips: "We need to go back and report. It shouldn't be a big problem."

"Why go back? The longer this matter is delayed, the more trouble we'll have if Renrengou finds out. I suggest you call now."

About twenty minutes later, the two returned to the meeting room.

"It's fine on my end."

"Me too!"

"Okay!" Yuan Zhiyu laughed. "In the Shanghai market, the three of us will form a friendly force to deal with Renrengou together. We will divide our areas and carry out activities in the corresponding areas. No matter how powerful Renrengou is, it can't deal with the three of us at the same time, right?"

Wang Shi, the city manager of Dianping, frowned and said, "I think this promotional activity cannot be kept secret from Renrengou. Whether it is a merchant meeting or a private communication, they have been operating in Shanghai for so long, and someone among those merchants will definitely inform them."

Yuan Zhiyu said: "Probably not. Let's make the scope smaller, select high-quality merchants, sign confidentiality agreements, and sue anyone who dares to leak the information. We will start promoting the event three or four days before the event. By then, even if Renrengou knows about it, it won't be able to react."

…………

"Come in!" Chen Pingjiang shouted to the outside after hearing the knock on the door.

After seeing the person coming, he smiled and asked, "Why are you here?"

Ge Mengshi walked over quickly and handed over an invitation.

"Meituan, Baidu Nuomi, and Dianping have jointly invited several of our brand managers to attend a merchant conference in Shanghai. I'd like to ask for your opinion."

Chen Pingjiang frowned and said suspiciously, "It doesn't make sense, does it? Don't they know that I have shares in Zhizhen Catering? At least they should know it when they see that the office and headquarters addresses are next to each other."

"I don't know about this either, but wasn't the legal person on the business license changed to me? The shares cannot be found online unless you check the company's background. But I'm sure they don't know the company's address, because the courier was sent to the previous office of Zhizhen Catering, and it was delivered by the landlord's contact person there."

Chen Pingjiang, who had figured it out, showed a playful expression on his face: "Interesting."

Obviously these three companies are making some big moves, which is why they jointly sent out invitation letters.

However, this mistake occurred because the sender of the letter did not conduct a background check, and because Zhizhen Catering and Renren.com had different offices before, and there was no such query website as Tianyancha that could penetrate equity in that era.

Anyway, they sent an invitation to the last person who should have received one.

In fact, it’s not their fault.

The group buying platform itself is not very strict in reviewing the qualifications of merchants. With so many cities and so many merchants, it is impossible to check the background of each one, right?
"Since they have sent me the invitation, I must go. It would be impolite not to go."

When Ge Mengshi saw the sinister smile on Chen Pingjiang's face, she knew that Meituan was probably in trouble.

After seeing Ge Mengshi off, Chen Pingjiang quickly called He Zhiyu's small circle.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Fu’s Taiyishou Hotpot and Haojue Foot Massage did not receive invitations.

This made Chen Pingjiang a little confused.

In fact, Meituan is not stupid either. They did not invite any other local brands that originated in Dongjiang except Zhizhen Catering.

As the birthplace of Renrengou, they believe that the brand chain stores in Dongjiang have long been infiltrated and must have a better relationship with Renrengou.

But Zhizhen Catering is different.

It has so many brands under its umbrella and its business is very good, ranking first on Renrengou for many years.

It covers three major categories: barbecue, milk tea, and pickled fish.

Any normal person would think that such a big brand should not be controlled by Renrengou, right?

After all, national chains like KFC, McDonald's, and Pizza Hut are well-known and have great reputations.

In short, for various reasons, Zhizhen Catering received the invitation letter.

11 month 1 number.

A brand merchant conference hosted by three group buying websites, Meituan, Dianping and Baidu Nuomi, was held in a five-star hotel in Shanghai.

Qin Suqin, Nan Xinzhi and Zhu Yuanlan, three golden flowers, attended the conference together.

Other well-known brands participating include Xiao Fei Yang Hotpot, Haidilao Hotpot, KFC, etc.

(End of this chapter)