Global monopoly of technology

Sure enough, the Series B financing had been negotiated in less than an hour, and the next was 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 completed a group photo with a group of investors and disclosed it to the media.

In this B round of financing, Bluestar Technology was valued at US$2.925 billion before the investment, and at US$3.25 billion (27 billion) after the financing. The company’s 10% equity financing was raised at US$325 million (2.7 billion).

Luo Sheng became famous on Wall Street on the same day. The next day, the Wall Street Journal used a front page headline to fully report on the financing, including mainstream Western media newspapers such as Bloomberg, New York Times, and The Guardian. Have quoted reports.

As soon as the news came out, it shocked countless people in the industry. This round of financing can be regarded as a financing myth of Huaguo Internet companies. Many Internet companies cannot even get so much money for IPOs.

This has also made Bluestar Technology the darling of the capital industry, attracting countless people to study how to capture VCs to make them so popular.

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

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

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

A start-up company that has been established less than a year ago has frequently raised four rounds of financing and exaggerated each time. Even many people in the technology industry in North America think Wall Street is crazy?

Why?

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

Many people even have a kind of illusion, as if they are returning to the crazy era when the Internet bubble has not yet burst. In that era, the B-round financing myth of Bluestar Technology may appear.

But now is the era after the Internet bubble burst.

Is Wall Street crazy?

Why is it so crazy to spend money on a company that has already raised three consecutive rounds of financing and has not yet created a profit?

But no matter what, the fact that Bluestar Technology has raised US$325 million in Series B financing, and a look at the list of investors has once again shocked countless entrepreneurs.

Softbank Capital, Sequoia Capital, Goldman Sachs Capital, Motor and Chase, Venture Capital, IDG, and Huajin Securities, any of them are the world's top VCs, but they also endorse a company.

No wonder Luo Sheng and Bluestar Technology will be on the headlines of the world, and it is not surprising to read these lists.

Goldman Sachs still led the B round of financing, with Huajin Securities, Morgan, and Sequoia as new capitals, and SoftBank, Venture Capital, and Tengxun followed up with varying amounts.

After completing the B round of financing, the equity structure of Bluestar Technology is:

Reserve option pool: 11.05%

Luo Sheng: 57.6%

Teng Xun: 9.45%

Goldman Sachs: 6.148%

Softbank: 5.26%

Venture Capital: 3.51%

IDG: 3.13%

Morgan: 1%

Huajin Securities: 1%

Sequoia: 1%

Other: 0.852%

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

After completing the B round of financing, Goldman Sachs Capital requested a quota for the company's directors. Luo Sheng naturally agreed to this. Then Huajin Securities, Morgan, and Sequoia also wanted a quota, but Luo Sheng decisively refused.

If so, the external investment shareholders will have 8 seats on the board of directors, which means that Luo Sheng has to expand the seats to 17 directors if he wants to control the board. VC controls 8 seats, and he has to take 9 seats to control the board. .

Although Luo Sheng has more than half of the nomination rights, the number of board members should be as small as possible.

Goldman Sachs should have got a seat on the board of directors. It has already led the vote twice in a row. It can be described as a high-profile support. According to the shareholder agreement, Luo Sheng has the majority 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 three new investment institutions no longer wanted the board of directors, so they had no choice but to ask for the board of supervisors. Luo Sheng agreed to this request.

With the successful completion of the B round of financing, Luo Sheng's Wall Street trip came to an end. He stayed 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 the rich district was not bought, but rented, not. Luo Sheng's personal capital contribution will be included in the company's financial expenses.

The main reason is that Lao Mei's freedom has passed, and Luo Sheng will stay here for a while, and he will not ignore the security issue.

After getting off the plane, Luo Sheng left the terminal, and there was already a luxury car waiting for a long time again.

The special car carrying him drove all the way to the Nanwan wealthy area. The client had already arranged Luo Sheng's temporary villa three days ago and could move in at any time.

This villa is called BodeOne. It is located on the edge of the local mountainside and has excellent landscape views. It has a large area of ​​929 square meters. The actual price is 20 million U.S. dollars. The architects used stainless steel, glass, stone and other elements to make the building facade. Very modern style, and uses the color and contrast of the artwork to produce a dramatic effect.

The entrance has a smooth sense of space. The layout of the whole mansion is specially designed to meet the large-scale entertainment function, forming an uninterrupted connection between indoor and outdoor.

The entertainment space, living room, lounge, bar, dining room, kitchen and outdoor pavilion lawn are all connected in the same space with an open design.

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

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

In addition to seeking Series B financing, another important issue during this trip to North America was to establish a brand new website, a news community website, because the Tieba project some time ago made Luo Sheng realize that there are no websites with similar elements in overseas regions.

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

No need to think about it, Luo Sheng must be decisive, going his own way, leaving others with nowhere to go.

In Luo Sheng's last life, this super website with global traffic that can reach the world's 4th place will never let go.

Reddit is a bit like the Tianya community in China. It is lively, interesting, and noisy. Users discuss topics they are interested in through each section. Luo Sheng remembers Reddit in the previous life. Some of them range from small versions of 3 people to super large ones of 20 million people. Edition, here can be described as everything.

Not only is it a bit like Tianya community, but also a bit like Yunge Tieba model.

But the difference from Tianya Community or Yunge Post Bar is that Reddit uses an anonymous mechanism. In other words, this website is basically impossible to appear in the country. It must be isolated outside the wall.

Even so, the global traffic of the Reddit website was later able to reach 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 [open and frank conversation place]. On the other hand, it also means that it is under the mud and sand. It is one of the strongest places of engagement for overseas Internet spouts. [The sewer of the Internet], without a strong heart visiting the Reddit forum website will definitely doubt life.

Luo Sheng also knew that Reddit in the original world had nearly 800 million users around the world, and its monthly active users reached 250 million, but it was difficult to make a profit. Reddit has super rich traffic. As a community website, there is no other way to make money. advertising.

But the reason why Reddit can't make money is precisely the anonymity mechanism that makes it so popular. Users can show their identities in the community, but the vast majority of users like to be anonymous.

However, it is impossible to design an accurate advertising positioning algorithm like the real-name BlueSpace website. There are also many reasons, such as bad reviews due to the sharing of illegal content, etc., causing advertisers to also criticize Reddit. Lack of interest.

But for 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 the wool comes from the dog.

Luo Sheng is not afraid that Reddit itself will not be able to make money. He 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 realize indirect cash, such as drainage to BlueSpace or other The associated mechanism indirectly increases BlueSpace’s advertising revenue.

This is the wool coming out of the dog. Of course, the premise is that the sheep is yours, and the dog must also be yours. If the dog is someone else's, that means helping someone else make a wedding dress.

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

...

(Seeking recommendation tickets, collection...)