My Age of Investment

"Daren, you should have heard of it? Last year I established a venture capital fund, Founders Fund."

Peter Thiel picked up a bottle of red wine, first poured a glass for Xia Jingxing, and then poured it for himself.

Holding red wine, the two stood side by side in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooking the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.

Under the sun, the iron chains of this 2,000-meter-long cross-sea bridge are shining brightly, and the continuous flow of vehicles on both sides of the north and south narrates the prosperity of the Bay Area.

Xia Jingxing did not answer rashly, but was thinking about the deep meaning of Peter Thiel's words.

Founders Fund, transliterated as Fundes Fund, free translation is called Founders Fund.

It certainly deserves the name, as it was formed by Peter Thiel and several other members of the PayPal founding team, all very successful founders.

The current asset management scale of this fund is only 50 million US dollars. It is not well-known in the United States, and it is only a junior in the industry.

But judging from the investment cases in his hands, LinkedIn, Yelp, Palantir... each is a well-known unicorn company, and success is a matter of time.

And that doesn't include Peter Thiel's private investments in Facebook and YouTube.

In the previous life, Peter Thiel made several major deeds, the most important of which is that the angel invested in Facebook and obtained 10% of Facebook's equity, with a rate of return as high as several thousand times.

In this life, Peter Thiel did not take advantage of the angel investment in Facebook, and only caught up with the A round. Currently, he personally holds 0.336% of Facebook shares, worth 84 million US dollars.

In addition, after YouTube was split off, Peter Thiel personally held a 0.315% stake in YouTube, worth about US$21 million.

The addition of these two assets is not a small amount of wealth, or Peter Thiel's largest source of personal wealth. Because after selling PayPal, Peter Thiel personally received only 55 million US dollars.

It was because of this relationship that Peter Thiel kept introducing the resources in his hands to Xia Jingxing.

In short, there is no love and hate for no reason in the world.

In the past, Peter Thiel made angel investments in the form of individuals. The amount of investment was not large, and the projects were relatively early. Not only was there no competition with Envision Capital, but it was also a complementary relationship.

Now that Peter Thiel has established his own venture capital fund, how to coordinate the relationship between the two parties has become a matter worthy of attention and careful consideration.

If it is said that the founder's fund will hit the street in the future, forget it.

But Xia Jingxing knew that not only did he not hit the market, but he also grew up quickly and became the best-performing and most famous funds in Silicon Valley.

Many people attribute this success to Peter Thiel's relationship network, because his younger brothers, members of the PayPal gang, continue to start businesses and invest in start-up companies, and quickly spread out, covering the entire network. Silicon Valley and the whole of America.

When doing venture capital, the role of contacts is very important.

If you look around China, the United States and the whole world, and see which companies the fund founders and recruited partners have worked for and invested in, you will know the law of resource flow, which always flows only in a small circle.

For example, Liu Erhai invested in Lu Zhengyao’s UAA Automobile Club when he was working at Legend Capital more than ten years ago. Ten years later, when Lu Zhengyao founded Ruixing Coffee, he immediately wanted to take his old friends to cut American leeks.

Of course, the project turned over in the end, and the old friend Liu Erhai was questioned and his reputation was seriously damaged, but Lao Lu's starting point for taking care of his old friends is still worthy of recognition.

After thinking for more than ten seconds, Xia Jingxing replied calmly: "I heard about it, speaking of it, our experiences are very similar.

You started PayPal, I started Facebook;

You started Cleary Capital and Founders Fund, and I started Vision Capital.

Of course, the scale of Vision Capital's hedge fund is still not comparable to that of Clary.

I heard that your performance and returns last year were very good, and you also won the Global Macro Fund Award,

Congratulations. "

Xia Jingxing picked up the red wine and touched Peter Thiel.

"Hehe, Cleary Capital has been developing for ten years, and it only achieved an asset management scale of 3 billion US dollars last year. There is nothing to brag about."

Peter Thiel looked at Xia Jingxing with a smile on his face, "I heard that the two hedge funds of Vision Capital are already close to 2 billion US dollars, and it only took you two and a half years to achieve this.

Seriously, you guys are the real stars of tomorrow. "

Xia Jingxing smiled, just as he paid close attention to Peter Thiel's movements, the other party also paid close attention to him, and actually knew Vision Capital in such detail.

In a sense, Peter Thiel is his kind, an ambitious man trying to build an investment empire in all fields.

Peter Thiel worked as a financial derivatives trader at Credit Suisse First Boston for several years before founding PayPal. Later, he raised $1 million from relatives and friends and rented it in the financial center of Silicon Valley at the cheapest price. In a windowless warehouse, Thiel Capital (later renamed Clary Capital) was founded, and it took another two years before PayPal was founded in 1998.

For him, PayPal was just a short-lived entrepreneurial attempt in his investment life. After selling PayPal in 2002, this man devoted his main energy to the investment business again.

Cleary Capital has developed very well in recent years. It is known as a rising star in the hedge fund industry and is expected to become a leading fund of tens of billions of dollars.

At this time, a hedge fund worth tens of billions of dollars is considered a giant in the industry.

In this context, Peter Thiel's sudden establishment of the Founders Fund is definitely not a joke.

Xia Jingxing guessed that, like himself, they should be constantly trying to broaden their investment fields in order to gain greater wealth and influence and form a closed loop in the industry.

Peter Thiel is definitely not willing to let the founders' fund give the vision capital's VC fund a low price.

And if the founders fund eats the lean meat, that is, invests in the Angel round, A round, and B round, and throws the fat meat, that is, the C round and D round, to Envision Capital, Xia Jingxing will also feel unwilling.

Because the C and D rounds of investment are often not profitable, and the reason why some funds are flocking to them is to use well-known investment cases to cheat management fees.

Of course, he can also leave the founder's fund and let everyone compete freely.

But after all, in this foreign country, many allies are better than one enemy.

In particular, Sequoia, DFJ and many other decades-old funds are still staring at the sidelines. It is unwise to rush to alienate or even form a grudge with Peter Thiel, who has a good relationship.

"Dairon, Founders Fund and Vision Capital's VC funds are still very small, compared to Sequoia and the others, we are just newborn children.

They have classic investment cases with hundreds of times returns and billions of dollars in returns, and our two companies have not even sent any company to the stage of IPO, and there is not even a case of M\u0026A exit. "

Peter Thiel stared at Xia Jingxing with a serious expression. After a while, he suddenly smiled, "What does this mean? It means that we must be united!"

"Hahahaha~"

Xia Jingxing also laughed, "Peter, you are right, our two families are indeed still unknown, if we are not united, how can we gain a foothold in Silicon Valley where competition is fierce and there are many established funds."

Hearing this, Peter Thiel felt relieved a lot. He also didn't want to turn against Xia Jingxing. Apart from the existing interests involved, it was obvious that the benefits of cooperation between the two parties outweighed the disadvantages.

At least until the two VC funds grow.

After a while of probing, the two sides reached an agreement easily because they were thinking on one channel, to continue the previous partnership between Peter Thiel and Vision Capital to the Founders Fund.

In terms of investment share and investment rounds, the two parties have also reached a certain verbal agreement.