Global Monopoly of Technology

Sure enough, the Series B financing was negotiated in less than an hour, followed by the signing ceremony.

In the evening local time, the signing ceremony of the Series B financing was completed under the witness of several North American mainstream media. Luo Sheng took a group photo with a group of investors and disclosed it to the media.

In this B round of financing, Bluestar Technology has a pre-investment valuation of 2.925 billion US dollars, a post-financing valuation of 3.25 billion US dollars (27 billion yuan), and sold 10% of the company's equity to raise 325 million US dollars (2.7 billion yuan).

Luo Sheng became famous on Wall Street that day, and the next day, The Wall Street Journal made a full report on the financing with its front page headlines, including Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Guardian and other mainstream Western media newspapers. Reports have been cited.

As soon as the news came out, it shocked countless people in the industry. It is no exaggeration to say that this round of financing is a financing myth of Huaguo Internet Company. Many Internet companies can't even get so much money from IPO.

This also makes Bluestar Technology the darling of the capital world, attracting countless people to study how to capture VC to make it so favored.

After completing the B round of financing, Bluestar Technology became the first unicorn-level Internet technology company after the burst of the Internet bubble.

The so-called unicorns are companies whose startups are valued at over US$1 billion before they go public, and Bluestar Technology was valued at US$3.25 billion after the B round of financing.

Compared with the valuation of ￥5 billion in the A round financing stage, in just three months, the valuation has skyrocketed by more than 5 times.

A start-up company that has not been established for less than a year has frequently conducted four rounds of financing, and each time it is more exaggerated, even many people in the technology industry in North America think that Wall Street is crazy?

Why?

Well, the development momentum of Bluestar Technology is indeed unstoppable, but why is it now valued at 3.25 billion US dollars?

It even made many people have an illusion, as if they were back in the crazy era when the Internet bubble had not burst, and the myth of Bluestar Technology's B round of financing might be able to appear in that era.

But now is the post-dot-com bubble era.

Is Wall Street really crazy?

Why spend so much money on a company that has raised three consecutive rounds of financing and has yet to make a profit?

But no matter what, it can't change the fact that Bluestar Technology has raised 325 million US dollars in Series B, and looking at the list of investors also shocked countless entrepreneurs again.

SoftBank Capital, Sequoia Capital, Goldman Sachs Capital, Morgan Stanley Chase, Venture Capital Fund, IDG, Huajin Securities, any one of them can be very rare, but they endorse a company at the same time.

No wonder Luo Sheng and Bluestar Technology made headlines in the world, and it is not surprising to read these lists.

Goldman Sachs led the investment in this B round financing, Huajin Securities, Morgan, Sequoia as new capital, Softbank, Venture Capital, Tengxun and other investment amounts vary.

After the completion of the B round of financing, the equity structure of Bluestar Technology is as follows:

Option pool reservation: 11.05%

Luo Sheng: 57.6%

Tengxun: 9.45%

Goldman Sachs: 6.148%

SoftBank: 5.26%

Venture capital: 3.51%

IDG: 3.13%

Morgan: 1%

Huajin Securities: 1%

Sequoia: 1%

Others: 0.852%

The B round of financing Bluestar Technology sold 10% of the equity, which was shared by major VC capital and raised US$325 million according to the proportion of capital increase. The rapid completion was also due to Luo Sheng's early greeting to Mengqiu, and Goldman Sachs Capital also conducted an advance third-party audit of the operations of Bluestar Technology.

After completing the B round of financing, Goldman Sachs Capital asked for a company director seat,

Luo Sheng naturally agreed to this, and then Huajin Securities, Morgan, and Sequoia also wanted a place, but Luo Sheng decisively refused.

If it is given, the external investment shareholders will hold 8 seats on the board of directors, which means that if Luo Sheng wants to control the board of directors, he will have to expand the seats to 17 directors, VC will control 8 seats, and he will have to take the nomination rights of 9 seats to control the board of directors. .

Although Luo Sheng has the qualifications for more than half of the nomination rights, the number of people on the board of directors is as small as possible.

Goldman Sachs should get a director seat. It has led the investment twice in a row. It can be said that it is a high-profile support. According to the shareholders agreement, Luo Sheng enjoys more than half of the nomination rights. Therefore, the board of directors of Bluestar Technology has changed from the original 9 seats. Expanded to 11 seats, of which Luo Sheng has the right to nominate six director seats.

In addition, the newly entered three major investment institutions can no longer obtain director seats, so they can only take the second place and ask for supervisor seats. Luo Sheng agreed to this request.

With the successful completion of the B round of financing, Luo Sheng's trip to Wall Street came to an end. He continued to stay in Manhattan for two days, and on the third day, he flew to the California Bay Area. The schedule was quite tight.

...

Before Luo Sheng arrived in California, his temporary assistant had arranged a place for him to rest in the San Francisco Bay Area. Of course, a luxury villa in a wealthy area was not bought, but rented, not Luo Sheng's personal contribution will be included in the company's financial expenses.

The main reason is that Lao Mei has gone too far. Luo Sheng will stay here for a while, and he will not ignore safety issues.

After getting off the plane, Luo Sheng walked out of the terminal, and a luxury car had been waiting for a long time again.

The special car that carried him drove all the way to the wealthy area of ​​Nanwan. The client had already arranged Luo Sheng's temporary residence three days ago, and he could move in at any time.

The name of this villa is called Bode One. It is located on the edge of the local mountainside and has an excellent view of the landscape. It has a large area of ​​929 square meters and the actual price is 20 million US dollars. The architect used stainless steel, glass, stone and other elements to make the building stand out. The face is extremely modern and uses the colour and contrast of the artwork for dramatic effect.

The entrance has a fluid sense of space, and the entire mansion layout is designed to accommodate large-scale entertainment functions, creating an uninterrupted connection between indoor and outdoor.

The entertainment space, living room, lounge, bar, dining room, kitchen and outdoor gazebo lawn are all interconnected in the same space with an open plan.

There is also a very large glass floor-to-ceiling window in the living room with a curved landscape.

In the evening, Luo Sheng sat on the chair by the large glass floor-to-ceiling window in the living room, with Erlang's legs crossed comfortably, and a laptop for work on his lap. He was staring at the screen, tapping constantly, then stopping think.

This trip to North America, in addition to seeking Series B financing, another important thing is to build a brand new website, a news community website, because the Tieba project some time ago made Luo Sheng realize that there is no website with similar elements in overseas areas.

That is Reddit, known as the "North American Post Bar". It was created in 2005 and today is January 2, 2004 Eastern Time.

Don't think too much, Luo Sheng must have cut off Hu decisively, went his own way, and left others with nowhere to go.

In Luo Sheng's last life, this super website with global traffic ranking 4th in the world will never let it go.

Reddit is a bit like the Tianya community in China. It is lively, interesting, and chaotic. Users discuss topics they are interested in through one by one. Luo Sheng remembers the Reddit in the last life. version, it has everything here.

Not only is it a bit like the Tianya community, but also a bit like the mode of Yunge Tieba.

But what is different from Tianya Community or Yunge Tieba is that Reddit uses an anonymous mechanism. In other words, this website is basically impossible to appear in China, and it must be isolated outside the wall and cannot enter.

Even so, the global traffic of the Reddit website can later rush to the top four in the world, which shows the popularity of this website in the world.

Reddit's anonymity mechanism has also set a tone for this website. On the one hand, it will become a [place for open and honest conversations]. On the other hand, it also means that it is one of the strongest fighting places for overseas Internet trolls. [The sewer of the Internet], without a strong heart visiting the Reddit forum website, you will definitely doubt life.

Luo Sheng also knows that Reddit in the original world has nearly 800 million users around the world, with 250 million monthly active users, but it is difficult to achieve profitability. Reddit has super rich traffic. As a community website, there is no other way to make money. advertise.

But the reason why Reddit can't make money is precisely the anonymous mechanism that makes it popular. Users can show their identities in the community, but the vast majority of users like anonymity, there is no doubt.

However, it is impossible to design a set of accurate advertising targeting algorithms like the real-name BlueSpace website. There are many reasons, such as bad reviews due to the sharing of illegal content, etc., which leads to advertisers. Reddit Lack of interest.

But to Luo Sheng, it doesn't matter, even if Reddit keeps losing money in the future, it doesn't matter, because there is a theory on the Internet that wool comes from dogs.

Luo Sheng is not afraid that Reddit can't make money by itself, but is afraid that the website traffic is not enough. The Internet industry must be the industry where traffic is king. As long as Reddit's super traffic is there, there are ways to indirectly realize it, such as diverting traffic to BlueSpace or other methods. The association mechanism, thereby indirectly increasing BlueSpace's advertising revenue.

This is the wool from the dog. Of course, the premise is that the sheep is yours, and the dog must be yours. If the dog is someone else's, it is helping others to make wedding dresses.

What Luo Sheng wants to build is the "Bluestar Technology Family Bucket". As long as the traffic flows within the "Family Bucket", the final profit will be harvested by himself.

...

(Ask for a recommendation ticket, collect...)