If Goose Factory or A Factory were willing to invest in him, the rest would be a matter of course and there would be no need for him to work so hard.
It can only be said that the rejection of those two families made it more difficult for Lin Yi, but even so, he would not give up easily. This time, he would persevere to the end no matter the sword or the fire.
After Robin Li let go, the rest was easy to handle. Lin Yi was already very familiar with the Xiong Factory, and he didn't go on a rampage with the boss's Shang Fang sword.
Although the preparations for his big move have not yet been completed, he certainly will not waste the opportunity during this period of traveling thousands of miles with a huge wallet. According to Lin Yi's requirements, it is expanding rapidly and has entered 25 cities by the end of November.
At the same time, his opponents were not idle either.
In December, Dudu Taxi announced in a high-profile manner in Beijing that it had completed the C round of financing. The amount of this round was also US$120 million. In addition to Goose Factory continuing to participate in the investment, it was led by a heavy-weight national shareholder.
According to Liu Jianni, Dudu had originally negotiated a financing of US$100 million, but because Wanli’s last round of funding was US$120 million, Goose Factory temporarily added an additional US$20 million to reach the same scale.
Cheng Wei's situation is different from Lin Yi's. He had already received the money from the Goose Factory in the last round. He originally did not want to ask for more. Otherwise, the shareholding ratio of the Goose Factory would be too high and he would not have control over the company.
Influence.
This time, in order to beat Wanli Travel, we had to give Goose Factory a chance to increase its holdings.
The good thing is that the post-investment valuation of Dudu Dache in this round of financing has reached US$600 million, which exceeds the US$500 million Wanli invested in Xiong Factory.
This is not because Cheng Wei likes to overpower others, but because they are all already lagging behind in terms of time, they cannot give in to each other on valuation, but must clearly show:
I am still number one.
Face is of course very important, because in many cases face is lizi.
For Dudu Taxi, this is the first time that they have lagged behind their peers in terms of financing. Cheng Wei is gearing up to give some glory to Wanli Travel, which had previously spent a lot of money on its rapid development.
It is said that just like Lin Yi was always in and out of the Bear Factory, Cheng Wei also appeared very frequently in the Goose Factory during this period, as if he was planning some move.
Lin Yi had no intention of changing his plans for this reason.
However, he still found Robin Li again and took the opportunity to make a trivial suggestion to him:
"Nowadays, everyone is taking taxis and getting large sums of cash. We are under great pressure. Xiongchang Wallet has just been launched, so why not join forces to organize a promotional event!"
"What's the deal?"
Lin had already planned: "We invite everyone to ride for free. During the event period, as long as you take a taxi on Wanli Travel and use Xiongchang Wallet to settle, you will be given a 10 yuan subsidy to both the driver and passenger."
10 yuan is the starting price of a taxi in first-tier cities, but less than in second- and third-tier cities. In this case, short-term taxi rides within three to five kilometers can indeed be considered free.
On the driver side, 10 yuan per order can greatly increase their interest in taking orders. Lin Yi believes that registered drivers will soon reach a higher level.
The intensity of this subsidy is unprecedented.
Although Wanli Travel has been engaged in a war of attrition in Beijing, Yangcheng, Lin'an and other regions and capitals since its launch, subsidies are the most conventional means, but these are local, temporary and probabilistic.
The three companies have never prepared to adopt such large-scale, full-coverage subsidy measures as they did this time, which can be said to be a waste of money.
It is indeed meant to be burned.
This was not the first time Robin Li knew about this, so he was not surprised. Xiong Chang and Liu Jianni gave Lin Yi a total of US$120 million, and Lin Yi promised to get the first place in the market within six months.
If this money is spent during the performance commitment period, it means that he will spend 20 million US dollars every month, which is converted into more than 100 million yuan.
It won’t be finished without burning the flowers.
In the past month or so, although the business scale and team size of Wanli Travel were inflating like a balloon, the speed of spending money was still not up to standard.
Robin Li did not question it. This was what was agreed upon before. He just added a Xiong Factory wallet for linkage. In this case, it was justifiable for Xiong Factory to pay some extra money.
Although Lin Yi was planning on tricking Robin Li into entering the game, Robin Li had already known about it when he proposed to launch Xiong Factory Wallet first.
To be honest, Robin Li didn't mind giving some money to support Wanli Travel. After all, it was just a drop in the bucket for Xiong Chang. The key was that Lin Yi convinced him that he could fulfill his performance commitments.
Boss Li waved his hand: "How to allocate it specifically?"
Lin Yi said: "Wanli Travel and Xiongchang Wallet each contribute half. We will prepare 50 million first. The two together will be 100 million. The event is tentatively scheduled for half a month."
Each order is 20 yuan, and the amount of 100 million can subsidize 5 million orders. Calculated in half a month, the average number is more than 300,000 orders per day.
This amount of money is completely within Robin Li's psychological expectations, and he also thinks it is a relatively "reasonable" capital plan.
The existing order scale of Wanli Travel will reach the level of 100,000 orders, and we are very optimistic about the stimulating effect of this event.
What he didn't know yet was that Lin Yi ordered Wang Kai to prepare a thousand servers.
Robin Li, who returned to China to start a business in 2000 and has experienced almost the entire development of the domestic Internet industry, could not imagine what would happen next.
Of course Lin Yi knew that 50 million was not enough, nor was the combined sum of 100 million or even the 120 million US dollars that he had just received and had not warmed up yet.
50 million is just a bait.
Robin Li felt that the money was nothing, so he agreed, and Lin Yi went back to prepare without any further reminders.
Now there is only one person in the entire Wanli trip who knows all his plans. The senior sister who was waiting for him in the office saw him appearing and asked immediately:
"What did Robin Li say?"
Lin nodded.
Li Moyan breathed a sigh of relief, the last and most important step was completed, but she still had doubts.
"Once we take the lead in starting the subsidy war, will the subsequent development and evolution become as intense and even crazy as you said?"
"Some things are meant to happen."
Lin Yi seemed to be telling his senior sister, but also seemed to be telling himself: "Goose Factory pays regardless of the cost for promotion, and Factory A is fierce and tit-for-tat, so Xiong Factory, also one of the three giants, cannot be the first to relent, even for the sake of face."
"
"This is not a script I wrote in advance. The industry structure has developed to this point, and the rest cannot be changed."
"As for us, we are in this chess game. It seems like we are chess players who take the initiative to challenge us, but in fact we just can't help ourselves."
"In a war that is destined to happen, does it matter who fired the first shot?"
Lin Yi glanced at himself and his senior sister, and finally said firmly:
"It doesn't matter, because whoever wins has the final say!"