dkrc 63. Valued at $6500 million
63. Valued at $6500 million
Li Xiang, through domestic headhunting firms, poached seventeen mid-level employees from Dangdang, Amazon China, Gome, and Suning, and sent them to Russia.
Based on this, the core team for Shopee's warehousing and logistics was formed.
Li Xiang's original plan was to rent an old state-owned factory in Russia for renovation, but he was short of money and wanted to save money wherever possible. However, the newly formed logistics team wanted to go straight for the steel structure.
The advantages of steel structures are obvious.
First, it is standardized. Once a logistics center is designed, it can be replicated indefinitely. Even the routes employees take at work, how many steps they need to take, and how many seconds it takes, can be planned in advance.
Unlike the renovation of old factories, the conditions of each factory are different.
Secondly, it facilitates adjustments to the scale of warehousing.
Steel structures are all standardized components. If space is insufficient, they can be expanded indefinitely as long as there is open space nearby.
Just keep building like you're stacking blocks, it's very convenient.
If the space is too large and will remain unused for a long time, the unused parts can be dismantled and the dismantled components transported away for reuse.
You don't know the cost of firewood and rice until you're in charge of the household; the money for steel structure will definitely not be enough.
However, Shopee's self-built logistics started later than Ozon's, so going it alone can accelerate the deployment process and allow for a faster market entry.
All things considered, the money was actually well spent.
Li Xiang accepted the new team's steel structure plan, which is good news for Xiaomi.
Xiaomi has no business experience, let alone civil engineering. The biggest challenge for him is construction, as this industry is too complex.
Steel structures are standardized and quick to assemble, requiring only a suitable location.
In Russia, residential land is hard to come by, similar to residential and commercial land in China, but industrial land is plentiful.
Faced with the opportunity to make money for free, Xiaomi couldn't find a reason to refuse Li Xiang. After a period of back-and-forth on the rent issue, the two parties successfully signed the contract.
Xiaomi has already boasted to his family that the logistics park business doesn't require a single penny from them, as he has already secured funding.
Where does the money come from?
Li Xiang agreed to lend him 3000 million rubles as start-up capital.
-
Hongxing Factory is Shopee's current logistics center. Various vehicles come and go every day, and no one checks them. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't keep up.
The "money-saving cans" stored in the food warehouse were treated as near-expiry promotional products, and were brazenly packed and shipped out.
Then, inside the truck, they opened the cans one by one and took out the money.
-
Xiaomi arranged to meet Li Xiang at his home, his own apartment, to sign the loan agreement.
Xiaomi prepared champagne, and the two celebrated with drinks after the contract was signed.
"It's a pleasure working with you!"
"Cheers!"
Xiao Mi downed her drink in one gulp, cleared her throat, and said, "Li, there's something you have to promise me: don't tell anyone about the money you lent me. I don't want my family to know."
"That's what I meant too, it's a secret between the two of us."
Xiao Mi was overjoyed that Li Xiang was so cooperative and quickly poured more wine. "When are you going to transfer the money to me?"
"Now." Li Xiang smiled broadly, took out his phone and sent a text message, "I've brought the money, it's downstairs, I'll bring it up right away."
"Cash?" Xiaomi was a little confused.
"Are you surprised that I'm giving you cash?" Li Xiang looked at Xiao Mi with an innocent expression.
"It's not entirely unexpected, but I just didn't think it could be drug money from the Tambov gang, right?" Xiaomi regretted her words as soon as they left her mouth and quickly added, "Just kidding, cash is fine too, I can spend it anyway, no problem."
Li Xiang patted Xiao Mi on the shoulder, "I can assure you that this is not Tambov's money, but it's understandable that you have some concerns. If you're really worried, take the money to a CONTI-owned casino, exchange it for chips, play a couple of rounds, and then exchange it back."
"The casinos are all yours, this is a piece of cake."
After Mirilashvili went to prison, the Milishvili family gradually lost control of the CONTI Group, but exchanging bargaining chips was indeed no problem for Mirilashvili, the former heir.
He could get 300 million rubles, let alone 30 million.
Xiaomi relaxed considerably, raised his glass again, and said with a smile, "I hope this collaboration between us will bring me good luck."
knocking.
"The money's here!" Li Xiang downed the champagne in his glass and breathed a sigh of relief. The Red Star Factory had an undercover agent from the investigation team, and they had finally managed to get the 30 million out right under their noses.
-
VKontakte was launched on October 1st last year, and in just six months, the number of registered users has exceeded two million.
While leasing data centers has alleviated VK's financial pressure to some extent, the operations team will be penniless if the company doesn't raise funds.
Everyone wants a raise; there's no reason to be poor while sitting on a gold mine.
Before the two Dus founded VK, another social network, Odnoklassniki, had already become popular in Russia.
The Chinese translation is "classmate".
OK was also launched in 06, three months earlier than VK, and currently has four million registered users.
It's one step ahead of VK.
OK and VK both started by expanding their user base from the campus. The university population is concentrated and the user base is homogeneous, so word-of-mouth can achieve good dissemination results, and there is basically no need to spend money on advertising.
However, if you want to capture the non-student market, appropriate advertising expenditure is essential.
For VK at this point, both for its own sake and its own personal interests, launching its Series A funding round has become an urgent matter that cannot be delayed any longer.
Through Li Xiang's connections, Zhang Baizhi recommended Hong Kong investment banks to VK, but what Xiao Du wanted was not just money, but also local resources in Russia.
The main reason is that VK's other two shareholders are too incompetent; they both have triad backgrounds and are not even as good as ordinary people.
Although Xiao Du has 100% voting rights in VK, such a big matter as financing still requires the consent of Xiaomi and Li Xiang.
"I screened investment targets that are interested in VK, and currently, DST offers the best terms."
"They agreed to invest only 24.99% of the shares, which would value the company at $6500 million."
DST shares have voting rights, but no real power.
Under Russian company law, 75% is a crucial threshold. The shares held by the Milishvili family and Li Xiang are entirely represented by Xiao Du, and even after dilution, Xiao Du still controls over 75%.
That 0.01% difference is the key to qualitative change.
Risk and return are always commensurate. Since Xiao Du demanded absolute control of VK, he naturally had to make concessions in valuation.
Based on VK's current commercial value, $6500 million is a relatively low price.
Mail.ru, Yandex (search engine), and Rambler (portal website) are the three giants in the Russian internet industry today.
Yuri Milner, the founder of Mail.ru, established Digital Sky Technologies (DST) in 2005 and began investing in the Internet in Russia. In just over a year, he had already invested in more than a dozen Russian Internet projects.
DST is also among the investors of my classmates.
Li Xiang did not question the valuation, asking, "How will my data center costs be calculated?"
"Do you want money or shares?"
"I want shares."
Xiao Du smiled wryly and said, "I knew you wanted shares all along, so I already included you in the Series A funding."
"If you both agree to DST's financing plan, Slava's shares will be diluted to 45.01%, and Li Xiang's shares will be diluted to 18.09%."
Li Xiang stated, "My opinion doesn't count; I'm just here to listen to the fun."
Slava is short for Vyacheslav. Xiaomi used a mobile calculator to multiply its own shares by the valuation.
He showed it to Xiao Du and Li Xiang, grinning widely, "2900 million! I earned 2900 million US dollars for my family!"