Winning the new financial era

Chapter 343 Industrial Upgrade
"Today, are all the shareholders here? I want to announce something!"

In the meeting room of Huimin Travel Company, Zhang Yida sat at the head seat, watching dozens of shareholder representatives present on both sides of the meeting table, and was about to announce the merger of the company.

Smith was also sitting in the meeting room, watching Zhang Yida intently, ready to hear what the "big surprise" Huang Xiaofeng was talking about?
"Huimin Chuxing, Pinduoduo, and Doushi will be merged into one group. After the merger into one group, they will fully integrate the resources of each platform and start striving for a higher valuation/market value goal!"

Investors were blown up when they heard it, and began to think about the feasibility of the merger, as well as the gains and losses.

Smith asked directly: "Mr. Zhang, can you tell me the benefits of the merger?"

"The simplest point is to improve the profitability of Huimin travel through the ecology of the new group.

To give an example: the current battle for shared bicycles has not yet completely ended. Hellobike and Xiaolan Bicycle are still fighting stubbornly in first- and second-tier cities.

At present, they basically have no chance to grow bigger, and they will not pose too much threat to us.

Of course, this refers to the situation where Jack Ma and Chen Wei didn't have a hothead and spend 40 billion US dollars.

If they are willing to spend billions of dollars in, then the bike-sharing business still has to be paid. "

Investors all laughed, and the current pattern of shared bicycles has basically remained constant.

Jack Ma and Chen Wei each have their own business fundamentals, how could it be possible to invest billions of dollars into the market?
If you say, this industry is like a gold mine, then maybe they will change their minds.

Investing billions of dollars today can recoup the cost or even more in a short time.

But shared bicycles are obviously not such a "gold mine" industry!You are not a gold mine, but a silver mine?

But Huimin Bicycle is nothing, perhaps it is more appropriate to call it a "mine pit".

Some investors have already regretted it. Huimin’s bicycle market share is indeed large, but profit is not as easy as it seems.

When the C round of financing is burned out, they are very worried about whether Huimin Travel will be able to raise another round.

If it can't be melted, then the situation is critical.

"Yida, don't be a snob, just tell me, there is no benefit in merging."

Xu Xiaoming was also present, and he urged Zhang Yida to finish speaking quickly.

"Okay, then I will continue."

Zhang Yida added: "Hello Bike and Little Blue Bike are backed by Ahri and Didi. Although they are not willing to spend billions of dollars in it, they can still give us a nail in the bike-sharing field.

They have been engaging in free strategies in first- and second-tier cities. In order to keep the market, we can only follow up.Therefore, Huimin Bicycle also suffers the largest losses in first- and second-tier cities.

The purpose of their doing this, on the one hand, is not to give up on the traffic portal of shared bicycles, on the other hand, I am afraid it is for strategic purposes, to retain a slight possibility of counterattack.

Speaking of this, everyone should almost understand it!If we want to make profits in Huimin travel, we must change our thinking.

After merging with Pinduoduo and Doushi, we can launch some joint activities.

For example: for half an hour of using TikTok, Huimin bicycles will be given away for half an hour for free riding;
When you spend 100 yuan, 200 yuan, or 500 yuan on Pinduoduo, you will receive weekly, monthly, and quarterly free rides for Huimin bicycles.

Riding Huimin bicycles for half an hour, one hour, we can also give out Pinduoduo shopping coupons to help Pinduoduo drive GMV...

Under this business linkage model, the GMV of Pinduoduo will be increased, the usage time and stickiness of Douvision users will be increased, and the frequency of use of Huimin bicycles will also be increased.

The profit of the other two companies, the profit of the group, is also the profit of Huimin Bicycle.

Of course, this is just an example. The specific business collaboration needs to be carefully discussed and studied by the operation team to maximize the benefits. "

"Yida, what do you mean is that bicycles continue to be ridden for free, but some conditions are added to achieve free, such as watching short videos on Doushi and shopping on Pinduoduo?

Let these two companies make profits, and then feed them back to Huimin Bicycle in the future? "

Zhang Yida looked at Shen Beipeng, nodded and said, "Yes, that's what it means. The three apps need to connect with each other's accounts to drive each other's business."

"Is Pinduoduo a little too low? I heard that it is very cheap to buy things, but the quality is not particularly good." Zhu Xiaohu from Jinshahe Venture Capital interjected.

"Pinduoduo was originally designed to sink the market, and it is for those customers who are sensitive to prices.

With the cost right there, trying to have the same quality as a product that is several times or even ten times more expensive is just wishful thinking.

Don't look at the current domestic people who are shouting "consumption upgrade" every day. In fact, the majority of people with below-average wages are actually the majority.

The base of users below these third- and fourth-tier cities definitely accounts for more than half of the 13 billion people. "

Zhu Xiaohu nodded, Zhang Yida was right.

Don't think that the white-collar life in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen is the average level of Chinese people.

As a well-informed investor, he naturally knows that many ordinary people are far from the so-called "average salary line" announced.

"I heard that Pinduoduo is a good e-commerce platform with an annual GMV of tens of billions. But Douvision, it is said that there are only users but no revenue?" Zhang Ying from Jingwei Global began to criticize again.

"There is no revenue because we have not started full-scale commercialization. Douvision users use it for a longer period of time than ordinary apps. If you start receiving advertisements, it is easy to increase revenue.

But now Douvision is still in the stage of rapid growth, and fishing in the dry lake is not worth the loss.

In addition, Musical.ly, a subsidiary of Douvision, has conquered cities and territories in Europe and the United States, and is invincible. "

Zhang Yida knew that it was not easy to reorganize several companies, so he praised DouTV very hard.

"I heard that Douvision's valuation is 70 billion US dollars?" Ren Yu asked.

"Yes, the A round of financing of US$10 billion was completed some time ago."

The investors who attended secretly clicked their tongues. The amount of this A round is much larger than that of other companies' C and D rounds.

"Is this valuation too high?" Zhang Sanshi expressed the aspirations of most investors present.

"How can it be high? All the data can stand scrutiny. We valued Kuaishou against the benchmark, which is very reasonable."

Xu Xiaoming also stood up to help Zhang Yida speak, "Yes, this valuation is not high. How many apps have more than [-] million users in less than a year? And the user activity is particularly high, which is very commercially valuable. .”

"Ahem, that...Mr. Xu, I heard that Zhenke Fund is also an investor in Doushi's A round?"

After speaking, Gan Renping from Qiming Venture Capital looked at Xu Xiaoming with a half-smile.

"Although Zhenke is also an investor of Doushi, it is also an investor of Huimin Travel, and we will not favor any side."

Xu Xiaoming was very frank, he really didn't favor any side, so he wasn't guilty at all.

"Then what is the current valuation of Huimin Travel? It has been several months since the C round of financing. It can't be $60 billion, right?" Tong Shijie from GGV Capital looked at Zhang Yida.

Zhang Yida said: "The valuations of the three companies will be re-evaluated based on the previous round of financing and based on the operating data up to now.

Any company, any investor will not suffer a loss, and we will conduct valuations in accordance with the principles of fairness and justice. "

The other investors stopped talking, Zhang Yida said so, and they also sold him face, let's see how the situation develops next.

Then, Pinduoduo and Doushi also held a general meeting of shareholders.

The financing rounds of these two companies are several times less than that of Huimin Travel, and there are not many investment institutions. Except for Penguin, they are Zhenke Fund and Heishan Capital.

Therefore, negotiating is much easier than traveling for Huimin, and a consensus was reached quickly.

At the same time that Pinduoduo, Doushi, and Huimin Travel hired external agencies to conduct due diligence, the press conference of Zhonghe Group was also held in Beijing.

At the venue, Zhang Yida announced in a high-profile manner that he would hire Lu Qi as the CEO of Zhonghe Group.

The reporters in the audience were stunned. Haven't you heard of such a No. [-] company?Could it be another new project created by Zhang Yida?

"Hello, Mr. Zhang, is Zhonghe Group your newly established company?"

Facing the reporter's question, Zhang Yida smiled and said, "Yes, that's right, it is indeed a newly established company."

"Then will this new company take artificial intelligence as its main research direction?" The reporter asked again.

"Including artificial intelligence research, but not the entire business of Zhonghe Group."

The reporter asked again: "Mr. Zhang, can you tell me more about it?"

Zhang Yida said: "Not yet, but you will know after a while."

Seeing that Zhang Yida was so unhappy, other reporters flocked to Lu Qi again, asking him questions one after another.

"Dr. Lu, I heard that you rejected the recruitment of domestic BATJ and chose the little-known Zhonghe Group. What is the purpose of this?"

Lu Qi smiled and said, "Because Mr. Zhang and I get along better, and we both have some common goals."

"Does this common goal refer to the research and development of artificial intelligence?"

"Include it too!" Lu Qi nodded, "But not all of them. Zhonghe Group's goal is to become a global technology company."

The reporter is even more curious about this mysterious Zhonghe Group, and it wants to become a global technology company.

Isn't this slogan too exaggerated?Penguin, Ali, and Qiandu are not worthy of such a title.

"Excuse me, Dr. Lu, how much is Zhonghe Group's salary for you?"

Lu Qi laughed, "This is personal privacy, which is kept secret for now, but it is still a bit higher than mine at Microsoft."

The reporter was even more curious. Lu Qi's annual salary at Microsoft was tens of millions of RMB, not including stock dividends.

The salary offered by Zhonghe Group is even higher than that of Microsoft. Could it be hundreds of millions?This is really the working emperor.

"Dr. Lu, what do you think is the gap between the AI ​​companies in mainland China and the top AI companies in Silicon Valley? Can they catch up?"

Finally asked a more nutritious question, Lu Qi said with a smile: "There must be a gap, but it's not as big as imagined, probably a few years.

In some areas, China still has rival or even leading companies.As long as we work hard to catch up, I think it is possible to catch up with the United States. "

"Dr. Lu, what is the direction of AI research and development of Zhonghe Group? For example, chat robots? Unmanned driving? Business intelligence analysis? Healthcare?"

Lu Qi smiled, "You are talking about too many fields? We will focus on one field first, such as business intelligence analysis.

For others, it depends on the specific development progress. "

A lot of reporters came to the venue to interview today. Artificial intelligence is a big gimmick. In addition, the Chinese migrant emperor returned to China to join a Chinese technology company. There are too many hot topics in this news.

Therefore, many reporters actively asked questions, generally around several key issues such as "artificial intelligence" and "Zhonghe Group".

Zhonghe Group is still an empty shelf, and the integration has not yet been completed, so Lu Qi did not discuss it in detail.

As for artificial intelligence, Lu Qi talked more about it.

He talked about the AI ​​boom in Silicon Valley, how many companies have entered this field, how many patents they have obtained, and how the research and development results will transform traditional "Internet" companies.

That's right, Internet companies have become traditional companies in front of AI.

In addition to Internet companies, traditional industries and manufacturing industries can also be empowered by AI.

Lu Qi said: "AI industrial model prediction refers to the use of industrial big data to intelligently allocate data such as raw materials, output, production time, and waste discharge through AI, and finally obtain an intelligent production model that is higher than extensive production.

In addition, expert experience can also be transformed into an AI model, which can then be reversed into production to solve the problem of insufficient worker experience;
There is also the transformation of maintenance and equipment management experience into AI models to predict equipment failures, intelligent management and maintenance systems, and so on.

As a big manufacturing country in our country, AI technological changes will bring a great impact, and we must be prepared.

Robots replace assembly line workers, fast translation machines replace translators, virtual anchors replace hosts, smart medical care replaces radiologists...

The advent of the AI ​​era will bring changes to the entire business and society. "

Lu Qi explained the profound things in a simple way, selected several industries, and briefly explained the impact of AI.

Lu Qi is still more pragmatic, talking about the "weak artificial intelligence" that will basically be realized in recent years, and does not talk about the "strong artificial intelligence" of the Terminator.

Because that is so far away that the current generation may not see it in their lifetime.

Many reporters at the scene were fascinated by it, and recorded Lu Qi's speech while listening, and published a manuscript when they were ready to go back.

The name is "The era of artificial intelligence is coming, are you ready?" "

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(End of this chapter)