Chapter 195: With 50 million in financing, the takeaway war is about to begin!
The succession of the CEO position of Kuaipao was quiet and silent.
On the eve of the Spring Festival, Pei Yi led his team to continue to conquer the takeout market in Luzhou.
The number of regular riders in the distribution department has rapidly expanded from more than 90 to more than 500, and there is also a part-time delivery team of more than 600 people to alleviate the delivery pressure during peak hours.
Normally, with the daily order volume of Kuaipao, at least 1,500 food delivery riders are needed to handle the task of delivering 100,000 orders.
However, currently 70% of the orders come from within the first ring road. Kuaipao's business scope is relatively concentrated, and with the addition of an intelligent delivery system, it can barely maintain delivery time.
Once the business expands to more remote areas, the existing system and transportation capacity will face great challenges, and the delivery delay rate will probably rise sharply.
If we fail to expand our transportation capacity and optimize algorithms in a timely manner, even if we invest more subsidies to attract new customers, it will be difficult to support the rapidly growing order volume. Instead, the delivery experience will deteriorate, leading to user loss.
Therefore, although the end of the year is approaching, Kuapao's human resources department is still recruiting people intensively, with more than 50 new employees joining the company every day.
Among these people, there are both 24-coupon door-to-door investment promotion agents and R&D engineers who fill the house with distinguished guests.
In the war of thousands of group buying websites, a large number of group buying websites go bankrupt every month.
Continuously supply outstanding talents to society.
Kuaipao took this opportunity to seize the good chance for development and growth. For grassroots investment, there are no industry barriers at all for takeout and group buying businesses.
The working modes of the two are almost the same. After joining Kuapao, you can immediately copy the previous group buying merchant resources into Kuapao one-to-one.
It can even be said that the speed at which group-buying websites go bankrupt is inversely proportional to the growth trend of Kuaipao’s merchants.
The other side.
The recent development of Kuaipao naturally attracted the attention of Ma Wenteng and Liu Zhiping.
"This guy is very mean. He dragged Penguin around for a while and refused to give up even 5% of the shares."
Ma Wenteng sat in the office and cursed with a smile.
“Not really. Since he asked, he must want to raise funds. It’s just a matter of price.
I valued Kuapao at 300 million, but he immediately opened an entry on Pinbei and increased Kuapao's daily orders to 100,000. ”
Liu Zhiping shook his head, also looking helpless.
He finally understood that for any project involving Chen Yansen, the other party would not accept financing unless a premium of three or five times was offered.
"Let Lin Chenfeng re-evaluate Kuaipao based on the current order size and complete the financing as soon as possible."
Ma Wenteng ordered, he didn’t want to miss the best opportunity to invest in Kuaipao.
After all, both DST and Sands Ventures have expressed strong investment intentions in Kuaipao.
If Penguin hesitates again, Chen Yansen may choose other venture capital institutions.
"I understand." Liu Zhiping nodded in response.
at the same time.
Zhu Xiaohu of Sands Ventures, Zhou Shouzhi of DST, and Shen Nanpeng of Sequoia Capital have all received the latest developments from Kuaipao.
They also did not expect that the food delivery model, which was originally not valued, would have such amazing development potential when it collided with traffic and capital.
After some thought, Zhou Shouzhi called Chen Yansen and proposed to invest in the company, with a valuation of 1 billion.
Chen Yansen smiled and declined politely.
DST has indeed invested in a number of Internet companies in China, but apart from funds, it cannot provide additional growth nutrients for Kuaipao.
But Chen Yansen is not short of money.
Zhou Shouzhi could only regretfully withdraw from the A round of financing competition for Kuaipao. As for Ele.me, he considered it privately, but gave up directly after an on-site investigation.
Compared with Kuaipao, Ele.me is far inferior to Kuaipao in terms of delivery time, order processing system and rider team building.
After Zhang Xuhao received US$1 million from Sands Venture Capital, he only upgraded the website and invested too much money in technical engineers, product managers, and marketing operations personnel.
However, Ele.me did a terrible job in the local BD, which Zhou Shouzhi paid more attention to.
As a food delivery platform, Ele.me connects users on one end and merchants on the other. However, Ele.me does not have outstanding results in both aspects, so Zhou Shouzhi naturally looks down on it.
This is also the reason why Zhu Xiaohu is unwilling to vote for Zhang Xuhao again.
At this time, Zhang Xuhao was sitting in the reception room of Ali Strategic Investment Cooperation Department, waiting anxiously.
Under the pressure of Kuaipao, he almost searched all the connections in the Jiaotong University alumni circle, but did not get a penny of financing.
So he turned his attention to the financial sponsor in Hangzhou.
A squeak! The door was pushed open.
Zhang Xuhao quickly stood up and took the initiative to greet him.
A bald middle-aged man in a blue suit was standing at the door, followed by two assistants.
"Mr. Ji, I've long heard of your name!" Zhang Xuhao leaned forward slightly and greeted with a flattering look on his face.
At this time, the real boss of Ali's Strategic Investment Department was still Cai Xin. Ji Gang was only the general manager and had not yet taken the position of person in charge.
However, Ji Gang also has full authority to make decisions on investment projects of this magnitude as Ele.me.
"Mr. Zhang, please take a seat."
Ji Gang smiled slightly and replied.
Before deciding to meet Zhang Xuhao, he had studied Ele.me and Kuaipao. He was indeed interested in investing in this O2O ecosystem that was different from the group buying model. His direct boss, Cai Xin, also believed that food delivery had certain growth potential in the local life track.
Since Chen Yansen joined hands with Yidong to compete with Taobao for e-commerce market share, Ma Liyun and Cai Xin did not want to invest in Kuaipao.
So they focused their attention on Ele.me.
"Boss Ji, this is Ele.me's business plan. As of December 31, Ele.me has 67,000 registered members, and the daily order volume remains at around 10,000."
Zhang Xuhao carefully handed over a document and introduced it slowly.
"Are you confident that you can defeat Kuapao?" Ji Gang took the document, looked down at it for more than ten minutes, and suddenly asked.
Zhang Xuhao was stunned for a moment, but he reacted immediately and said firmly: "The only difference between Ele.me and Kuaipao is the lack of expansion funds. As long as Ali is willing to invest in Ele.me, I guarantee that we can surpass Kuaipao within three months."
The biggest taboo for entrepreneurs is to be afraid before the battle. Zhang Xuhao's words made Ji Gang nod secretly.
In terms of product accumulation, Ele.me has been in operation for three years, and its technology in order and delivery systems should be stronger than that of Kuaipao.
"Ali gave you 50 million in funds, how much equity will you exchange for?" Ji Gang put down the documents, looked at Zhang Xuhao and asked.
In his opinion, considering Ele.me's current size and the premium factor, its valuation is at most 200 million yuan.
Therefore, if Zhang Xuhao only gave less than 10%, Ji Gang would definitely turn around and leave.
His bottom line is 30%.
After all, from Ji Gang's perspective, Ele.me is just a small platform with just over 10,000 orders per day.
If Chen Yansen hadn't popularized the concept of takeout, he would have bargained even more ruthlessly.
After hearing this, Zhang Xuhao suddenly fell silent.
He didn't know yet that Chen Yansen was about to invest 200 million yuan in Kuaipao, so he felt that 50 million yuan was enough for Ele.me's future development.
But he only wanted to sell 15% of the shares.
"Boss Ji, I only need 30 million in funds, in exchange for 15% of Ele.me's equity."
After thinking quickly, Zhang Xuhao replied directly.
"The customer acquisition cost of Kuaipao is estimated to be around 15 yuan. 30 million yuan can only buy 2 million new customers. You can't even take over the takeaway market in Shanghai. How can you compete with Kuaipao?"
Ji Gang shook his head and rejected Zhang Xuhao's plan.
"How about 20%?" Zhang Xuhao asked tentatively.
“30%! I don’t think Ele.me’s valuation can reach 250 million.” Ji Gang said lightly.
30%?
Zhang Xuhao shook his head repeatedly. Sands Ventures took 20% in the seed round. If they gave Ali another 30%, the shareholding ratio of their founding team would soon be below the warning line of 50%.
There will be A, B and C rounds of financing next. What should we do then? After more than two years of operational research, he already knew that users' acceptance of takeout was not high, and that huge amounts of money were needed to cultivate the market and educate users.
Once he agrees to Ali, he is very likely to lose controlling rights.
If it doesn't agree to Ali, Ele.me will most likely not survive the first half of 2012.
"25%, that's all I can give you. If Mr. Ji doesn't agree, I'd rather give up Ali's financing."
Zhang Xuhao thought for a moment, sighed, and said in a firm tone.
"OK, I can accept this number, but whether it can pass the group's resolution requires President Zhang to go back and sort out the financial and business statements and submit them to Ali's venture capital department for review."
Ji Gang hummed, then explained with a smile.
"I understand." Zhang Xuhao couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when he heard that.
In any case, with this money, Ele.me can at least survive this winter, and in the spring of next year, it will be able to hold on to the takeout market in Shanghai and accelerate its expansion.
…
…
Luzhou, the central government.
After Meng Yuanzhi explained the reasons, he gave the choice to the persons in charge of Luzhou Construction Investment and Xincheng International.
These two local investment companies hold nearly 20% of the shares of Dongfang.
Chen Yansen’s request can only be realized if he convinces these two people.
"I disagree! To put it bluntly, Orange Technology is just a mobile phone assembly factory. Its value is far less than that of Dongfang. There is no need for us to lose sight of the big picture."
Wang Qingsheng of Luzhou Construction Investment directly refused.
Meng Yuanzhi frowned, feeling unhappy.
Seeing this, Xu Minggang of Xincheng International immediately understood Meng Yuanzhi's idea and said with a smile: "Mr. Wang, in fact, Orange Technology also has its own patented technologies, such as Aurora OS operating system, battery management, global gesture operation and fast charging, but I don't agree to transfer the equity directly to Senlian Capital. Let the other party use Orange Technology's equity in exchange."
After hearing this, Meng Yuanzhi's eyes lit up and he thought Xu Minggang's idea was a good one.
In this way, Dongfang and Orange Technology can be deeply tied together, which is more in line with the overall interests of Luzhou.
"If it's an equity swap, then I have no objection." Wang Qingsheng glanced at Meng Yuanzhi's expression, then looked at Xu Minggang, and finally agreed.
The total market value of Dongfang is about 60 billion, and Senlian Capital purchased 4.9% from the circulation market.
Since it did not reach the 5% red line for holding shares, the outside world did not know that Orange Technology had already begun to lay out its supply chain in order to reduce material costs.
"Since both of you have no objection, let's do this for now. We can discuss the rest when we meet in person."
Meng Yuanzhi made the decision and finalized the matter.
That afternoon, Chen Yansen received a call back from Tao Jingwen, who proposed a cooperation plan for equity swap.
Chen Yansen thought about it for a moment and agreed readily.
After setting the discussion time, Chen Yansen hung up the phone.
He planned to wait for Gao Weilin to return from his inspection in Hangzhou before starting to work on acquiring shares in Dongfang.
Although he can buy a certain proportion of shares in terms of market value, it will easily increase the purchase cost. Secondly, behind Dongfang is the local capital of Yanjing and Luzhou.
At that time, they will be accused of hostile takeover and may even have to give back the shares they have acquired.
Now that I have Meng Yuanzhi's permission, I have nothing to worry about.
Otherwise, even if the investment institutions behind Dongfang don't care about him, they will have to raise their hands every time the equity increases by 5%. Retail investors in the secondary market are not fools and will definitely hold on to their chips.
By then, it is not impossible for the price of 1.6 yuan per share to rise to 16 or 26 yuan.
Chen Yansen doesn't want to be a scapegoat!
At this time, Gao Linwei had just boarded the plane back to Xucheng. The negotiations between him and Cheng Weixing went particularly smoothly, and he successfully took the lead in the new project.
(End of this chapter)
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