I can become stronger by paying salaries. I have one billion employees!

Chapter 194: 5000 Million Yuan in Funding, the Food Delivery War is About to Begin!
The change of CEO for Kuaipao was carried out quietly.

On the eve of the Spring Festival, Pei Yi led his team to continue their expansion in the food delivery market in Luzhou.

The number of official delivery riders in the delivery department has also expanded rapidly 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 periods.

Normally, with Kuaipao's daily order volume, at least 1500 delivery riders are needed to handle the delivery of 10 orders.

Currently, 70% of orders come from within the first ring road. Kuaipao's business scope is relatively concentrated, and with the addition of the intelligent delivery system, it can barely maintain delivery timeliness.

Once the business expands to more distant areas, the existing system and capacity will face a great test, and the delivery delay rate will likely rise sharply.

If delivery capacity cannot be expanded and algorithms optimized in a timely manner, even if more subsidies are invested to attract new customers, it will be difficult to support the rapidly growing order volume. Instead, the decline in delivery experience will lead to user churn.

Therefore, despite the approaching end of the year, Kuaipao's HR department is still recruiting in full swing, with more than 50 new employees joining every day.

Among these people were on-the-ground sales representatives from 24quan, as well as R&D engineers from Manzuo and Gaopeng.

During the fierce competition among group-buying websites, a large number of these websites went bankrupt every month.

It continuously supplies society with outstanding talents.

Kuaipao seized this opportunity to usher in a good time for development and expansion. For grassroots merchants, the food delivery and group buying businesses have no industry barriers at all.

The two operate in almost the same way. Once you join Kuaipao, you can immediately copy your previous group-buying merchant resources into Kuaipao on a one-to-one basis.

It could even be said that the rate 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.

"That kid is really cunning. He dragged the penguin around for a while, but he won't even give up 5% of the shares."

Ma Wenteng sat in his office, laughing as he cursed.

"It's not that bad. Since he brought it up, he must want to raise funds. It's just a matter of price."

I valued Kuaipao at 3 million, but then they turned around and opened an entry point on Pinduoduo, boosting Kuaipao's daily orders to the 10 level.

Liu Zhiping shook his head, looking equally helpless.

He realized that if Chen Yansen's projects didn't offer a premium of three to five times, the other party simply wouldn't accept financing.

"Have Lin Chenfeng reassess Kuaipao based on the current order volume and complete the financing as soon as possible."

Ma Wenteng instructed that he did not want to miss the best opportunity to invest in Kuaipao.

After all, both DST and Sands Ventures have shown a strong interest in investing in KuaiRun.

If Tencent hesitates any longer, Chen Yansen might choose another venture capital firm.

“I understand,” Liu Zhiping nodded in response.

at the same time.

Zhu Xiaohu of GSR Ventures, Zhou Shouzhi of DST, and Shen Nanpeng of Sequoia Capital have all received the latest updates on Kuaipao.

They never expected that the previously neglected food delivery model could unleash such amazing development potential when combined with traffic and capital.

After some consideration, Zhou Shouzhi called Chen Yansen and proposed to invest in the company, offering a valuation of 10 billion yuan.

Chen Yansen smiled and politely declined.

DST has indeed invested in many internet companies in China, but apart from funding, it cannot provide additional growth support for KuaiPao.

Chen Yansen, however, is not short of money.

Zhou Shouzhi had no choice but to withdraw from Kuaipao's Series A funding round. As for Ele.me, he had considered it privately, but after conducting on-site investigations, he gave up on it directly.

Compared to KuaiPao, Ele.me is far inferior in terms of delivery timeliness, order processing system, and rider team building.

After receiving $100 million from Sands Ventures, Zhang Xuhao only upgraded the website and invested too much money in technical engineers, product managers, and marketing personnel.

However, Ele.me performed terribly in the area of ​​ground promotion and business development, which Zhou Shouzhi valued more.

As a food delivery platform, Ele.me connects users on one end and merchants on the other. Ele.me has not achieved outstanding results in either aspect, so Zhou Shouzhi naturally looked down on it.

This is also why Zhu Xiaohu refused to join Zhang Xuhao again.

At this moment, Zhang Xuhao was sitting in the meeting room of Ali's Strategic Investment Cooperation Department, waiting anxiously.

Under pressure from Kuaipao, he searched almost his entire network of alumni at Jiaotong University, but failed to secure a single penny of funding.

So he set his sights on the wealthy patrons of Hangzhou.

A squeak!
The door was pushed open.

Zhang Xuhao quickly stood up and went to greet him.

A bald, middle-aged man stood at the door, wearing a blue suit, with two assistants behind him.

"President Ji, I've long admired your name!" Zhang Xuhao greeted him with a slight bow and a fawning expression.

At this time, Cai Xin was still the real head of Ali's strategic investment department, while Ji Gang was just 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 deals of the scale of Ele.me.

"Mr. Zhang, please have a seat."

Ji Gang smiled slightly and replied.

Before deciding to meet Zhang Xuhao, he had researched Ele.me and Kuaipao. He was indeed interested in investing in this O2O ecosystem, which was different from the group-buying model. Moreover, his direct boss, Cai Xin, also believed that food delivery had certain growth potential in the local life service sector.

Because Chen Yansen, together with JD.com, was competing with Taobao for market share in the e-commerce market, Ma Liyun and Cai Xin did not want to invest in Kuaipao.

They then turned their attention to Ele.me.

"Mr. Ji, this is Ele.me's business plan. As of December 31, Ele.me had a total of 67,000 registered members, and the daily order volume remained at around 10,000."

Zhang Xuhao cautiously handed over a document and slowly began to explain.

"Are you confident you can beat Kuai Pao?" Ji Gang took the document, looked down at it for more than ten minutes, and suddenly asked.

Zhang Xuhao was taken aback for a moment, but quickly recovered and said with certainty, "The only difference between Ele.me and Kuaipao is the 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 mistake entrepreneurs can make is to back down before even starting, and Zhang Xuhao's words made Ji Gang nod in agreement. In terms of product development, Ele.me has been operating for three years, so its technology in order processing and delivery systems is likely stronger than Kuaipao's.

"Ali gives you 5000 million yuan in funding. How many shares will you exchange for it?" Ji Gang put down the documents and asked Zhang Xuhao.

In his view, given Ele.me's current size and the premium factor, its valuation is at most 2 million yuan.

Therefore, if Zhang Xuhao only offers less than 10%, Ji Gang will 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 daily orders barely exceeding 10,000.

If Chen Yansen hadn't popularized the concept of food delivery, he would have been even more aggressive in haggling over prices.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Xuhao fell silent.

He was unaware that Chen Yansen was about to invest 2 million yuan in Kuaipao, so he felt that 5000 million yuan was enough for Ele.me's future development.

But he only wants to sell 15% of the shares.

"Mr. Ji, I only need 3000 million yuan in funds, in exchange for 15% of Ele.me's equity."

After a quick thought, Zhang Xuhao replied directly.

"KuaiPao's customer acquisition cost is estimated to be around 15 yuan. 3000 million yuan can only buy 200 million new customers. You can't even capture the food delivery market in Shanghai. How can you compete with KuaiPao?"

Ji Gang shook his head, rejecting Zhang Xuhao's proposal.

"How about 20%?" Zhang Xuhao asked tentatively.

“30%! I don’t think Ele.me’s valuation can reach 2.5 million,” Ji Gang said calmly.

30%?

Zhang Xuhao shook his head repeatedly. Jinsha Venture Capital took 20% in the seed round. If they gave Ali another 30%, their founding team's shareholding ratio would soon fall below the 50% warning line.

What will happen when there are Series A, Series B, and Series C funding rounds?
After more than two years of operational research, he had long known that users were not very accepting of food delivery and that huge sums of money were needed to cultivate the market and educate users.

If he agrees to Ahri's demands, he is very likely to lose control.

If Ele.me doesn't agree to Ali's demands, it's highly likely it won't survive the first half of 2012.

"25%, that's all I can offer. If Mr. Ji doesn't agree, I'd rather give up the financing for Ali."

Zhang Xuhao pondered for a moment, sighed, and said firmly.

"OK, I can roughly accept this number, but whether it can be approved by the group still needs to be reviewed by President Zhang after he goes back and organizes the financial and business reports and submits them to Ali's venture capital department for review."

Ji Gang hummed in agreement, then explained with a smile.

"I understand." Zhang Xuhao breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this.

In any case, with this money, Ele.me can at least survive this winter and, in the spring of next year, hold onto the Shanghai food delivery market and accelerate its expansion.

……

……

Luzhou, the central government office.

After explaining the reasons, Meng Yuanzhi handed over the choice to the heads of Luzhou Construction Investment and Xincheng International.

These two local investment companies hold nearly 20% of the shares in BOE East.

Chen Yansen's request can only be fulfilled if he convinces these two individuals.

"I disagree! Orange Technology is just a mobile phone assembly plant, and its value is far less than that of Ren Dongfang. We don't need to put the cart before the horse."

Wang Qingsheng of Luzhou Construction Investment Group directly refused.

Meng Yuanzhi frowned, displeased.

Upon seeing this, Xu Minggang of Xincheng International immediately understood Meng Yuanzhi's idea and said with a smile:
“Mr. Wang, Orange Technology also has its own patented technologies, such as the Aurora OS operating system, battery management, global gesture operation and fast charging, etc., but I do not agree to directly transfer the equity to Senlian Capital. I would like to ask them to exchange Orange Technology’s equity for it.”

Upon hearing this, Meng Yuanzhi's eyes lit up, and he thought Xu Minggang's idea was excellent.

In this way, we can deeply bind Dongfang and Orange Technology together, which is more in line with the overall interests of Luzhou.

“If it’s a share 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 NetEase is around 600 billion yuan, and Senlian Capital purchased 4.9% of it from the circulating market.

Since it did not reach the 5% threshold for mandatory disclosure of shareholding, the outside world was unaware that Orange Technology had begun to lay out its supply chain in order to reduce material costs.

"Since neither of you has any objections, let's settle on this for now, and discuss the rest when we meet."

Meng Yuanzhi made the final decision and settled the matter.

That afternoon, Chen Yansen received a call back from Tao Jingwen, who proposed a cooperation plan involving equity swap.

After a moment's thought, Chen Yansen readily agreed.

After setting a time for the meeting, Chen Yansen hung up the phone.

He planned to start working on acquiring shares in Di Dongfang after Gao Weilin returned from his inspection trip to Hangzhou.

Although he could acquire a certain percentage of shares based on market capitalization, this would easily increase the purchase cost, and secondly, Di Dongfang is backed by local capital from Yanjing and Luzhou.

If they label him a hostile takeover, he might have to give back the shares he acquired.

Now that we have Meng Yuanzhi's permission, we have no more worries.

Otherwise, even if the investment institutions behind Dongfang don't care about him, they still have to raise their bids every time they increase their shareholding by 5%. Retail investors in the secondary market aren't stupid; they will definitely hold onto their shares tightly.

At that time, it's not impossible for the price to rise from 1.6 yuan per share to 16 or 26 yuan.

Chen Yansen didn't want to be taken advantage of!

At this moment, Gao Linwei had just boarded a plane back to Xucheng. His negotiations with Cheng Weixing went exceptionally smoothly, and he successfully secured control of the new project.

(End of this chapter)