Crossover: Pen name: Dazai Osamu, Omega Kasumigaoka

Barclays Bank?!

Hearing this resounding name.

A look of realization flashed across Kitahara Makoto's eyes.

Barclays Bank, a top-tier commercial bank in the UK.

It ranks among the world's top ten investment banks, alongside Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and other top commercial banks.

It is one of the world's most famous giants (CECJ).

Ever since he had someone release information that NicoNico was preparing for its second round of financing.

A large number of investors flocked to the scene, including not only Japanese conglomerates like Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, but also international giants like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.

Therefore, the reason why Barclays Bank sent someone to deliver a message at this time is self-evident.

It's definitely because they want to invest in NicoNico.

That's right, the news that NicoNico wanted to launch a second round of financing was leaked by Kitahara Makoto himself.

After all, for NicoNico Animation to go public, the endorsement of SoftBank Group alone is not enough.

Moreover, Kitahara Masashi believes that only by relying on the North American market can he expand into the global market.

Only such a huge market can cultivate super giants worth hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars.

However, to enter the North American market, you need the backing of the giants and powerful forces there.

Therefore, NicoNico must bring in international investment banks.

Only in this way can we develop steadily in North America.

Otherwise, TikTok will face constant trouble and nitpicking in the future.

To put it bluntly, it's simply insatiable greed.

They're taking advantage of the fact that you're not a local and trying to steal this from you.

Unfortunately, they are always in a difficult position, even though the judges... I mean, the referees are all on the other side's side.

Kitahara really doesn't want to encounter this situation in the future.

That's why they wanted to get a few international giants to endorse them.

Of course, this is just one method.

Another method is to improve one's own strength.

For example, investing in several White House presidents in advance.

Then no one would dare to cause trouble for NicoNico.

However, this is a problem that needs to be addressed when entering the North American market.

Let’s not express it for now.

Since Eriri's father has stepped in, and Barclays Bank is one of the world's giants, it meets Kitahara Makoto's standards.

Naturally there is no reason to refuse.

So Kitahara Makoto readily agreed to the invitation from the Barclays Bank representatives.

Seeing that Kitahara Shin, this 'son-in-law,' was giving him so much face.

Lynn Spencer was also very pleased, and his feelings for Kitahara Makoto grew even stronger.

Just then, Eriri came looking for her.

Eriri's mother had already prepared a large meal at home.

The three of them went back to Eriri's house for dinner, which was Kitahara Makoto's first time having a family dinner at Eriri's house.

Chapter 100: The Betting Agreement

A few days later.

Kitahara met with a host of major investors, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Barclays.

The two parties held preliminary discussions regarding financing NicoNico.

Then huge disagreements arose.

The point of contention lies in the valuation of NicoNic-o by both parties.

Kitahara Shin's asking price was $14 billion, a three-fold increase over SoftBank's initial investment.

However, among the major investors, Goldman Sachs, which offered the highest price, only gave a valuation of nine billion.

The others are all around $8.5 billion.

The reason for such a large valuation gap between the two parties.

One reason is that NN Chat has not yet developed its own monetization channels.

NN Chat has hundreds of millions of daily active users, requiring a large amount of servers, bandwidth, electricity, and manpower.

Before figuring out their own way to make a profit.

They rely entirely on NicoNico animation to make a living.

This is a huge drag.

Another, and most important, reason is that the Japanese market is too small.

In this small area, the number of video website businesses is limited, and the room for growth is also limited.

To put it bluntly, Japan is a place that can't nurture true dragons.

After several rounds of negotiations.

Kitahara is truly unwilling to bow down on valuation.

So he signed a betting agreement with the three highest bidders: Goldman Sachs, Barclays Bank, and the Mitsui Group (the conglomerate to which Sony belongs).

Within a month, NN Chat launched its own monetization model.

If this can be achieved, the other companies will agree to invest in NicoNico at a valuation of 14 billion.

However, Kitahara Shin also had to sign a contract guaranteeing that he would lead NicoNico to go overseas and enter the North American market two years ago.

If he cannot do that, he will have to accept a valuation of $8.5 billion and give up 30% of the shares.

……

……

Beidou Star Communications.

After signing contracts with three investors.

Kitahara Shin drove here.

"President!"

In the office, Terada Sosuke spoke with a respectful expression.

"Kusuke, get ready to launch the membership feature and pop-up ads!"

During the development of NN chat.

Kitahara Shin had already asked the developers at Hokuto Star Communications to develop the membership function.

The membership features are divided into two levels: NN Member and NN Super Member.

Regular membership costs 500 yen per month, and premium membership costs 1000 yen per month.

Becoming a member grants various privileges, including a larger and redrendered name, special notifications when entering chat groups, and exclusive NN space decorations...

And most importantly, the accelerated upgrade function.

When NN Chat was first launched, it had different levels, from the most basic star to moon, sun, crown...

The upgrade method is based on online time; the more online time you accumulate, the higher you can upgrade.

Once there are hierarchies, people will have a competitive mentality.

Especially now, during this period when NN chat is incredibly popular.

Once you reach a higher level and become a member, you'll have special privileges.

This naturally leads to vanity.

And they go and pay the price for this vanity.

The membership feature was the first way Penguin successfully turned a profit.

Kitahara Makoto hadn't originally planned to release this feature so soon.

His plan was to wait a few more months until NN Chat completely monopolized the chat software market in Japan.

Then, they launched a membership feature.

But there's no other way; right now, in order to appease those difficult investors and get them to accept my valuation of NicoNico, I have to do this.

For now, we can only use it as a temporary measure.

As for pop-up ads, these are pages that automatically pop up in the lower right corner of the screen every time you log in to your account.

Users can manually disable it, but it will be enabled by default if no settings are specified.

In addition, ads can also be placed in NN space.

This is one of NN Chat's main ways of making money.

It is precisely because they have so many deadly weapons at their disposal.

Kitahara Shinji dared to sign a betting agreement with that group of heartless bastards.

……

……

December of 07.

NN Chat has officially launched its membership feature.

In this cold winter, the capital market is booming.

Because as soon as NN membership was launched, the number of users exceeded one million in the first month.

Even at the lowest price for a regular membership.

NN Chat also earned 500 million yen.

Moreover, many of these people have not only opened regular memberships, but also memberships that last for more than a month.

In fact, because annual memberships offer discounts, many people directly subscribe to annual memberships.

So in the first month, NN Chat's actual revenue was ten million US dollars.

In the second month, the number of new users surged again, reaching three million.

At this time, NN Chat also launched advertising services for NN Space.

NN Chat now boasts the highest daily active users across the entire internet.

Undisputed king of traffic.

Therefore, after NN Space launched its advertising service, merchants and advertisers went on a near-frenzied rampage, throwing money at NN Chat.

This resulted in Beidouxing Communications making a direct profit of 30 million US dollars in the second month, which is equivalent to more than 3 billion Japanese yen.

This has gone beyond simply recouping the development and operational costs of NN Chat.

This has already generated hundreds of times the profit.

Investors who were initially hesitant about Kitahara Makoto's high valuation.

I can see the energy that bursts forth from NN chat.

Without the slightest hesitation, they all took the initiative to contact Kitahara Makoto again.

This time, they didn't haggle and wanted to invest at the price offered by Kitahara Makoto.

Unfortunately, it was too late.

After signing the performance-based agreement.