Gu Caiwei's fortune has turned around, but Lin Yi doesn't seem to have.
In May, Uber announced the completion of a US$1 billion Series F financing. In addition to the US$1 billion received in February this year, they have received US$2 billion in equity financing since 2015 alone.
Kalanick’s financing environment is great.
Stimulated by this news, Lin Yi also accelerated the progress of Wanli Travel's next round of financing. During this period, he visited many potential investors intensively.
Among the shareholders who entered in the previous rounds, Li Robin has agreed to add more, and the second most wealthy one is Zhang Lei of Gaoling Capital.
The latter was actually a little worried about the situation of Wanli Travel after the merger of Dudu Kuaidu, but after Lin Yi had a long talk with him, he decided to make another investment, but only as a follow-on investor.
In addition to the professional venture capital and private equity institutions that they had already visited during the last round of financing, Lin Yi and the others also focused on some relatively large companies this time.
Because with the explosion of the taxi-hailing industry, the current scale leaves a lot of room for business cooperation for many companies. In comparison, the money is relatively easy to get.
For example, Lin Yi visited several domestic smartphone manufacturers in turn, because 2014 was the first time that domestic smartphone brands surpassed foreign brands, and rice phones topped the list.
So Lin Yi naturally found Mr. Lei Jun. With his and Wan Lixing's current status, it was not difficult to arrange such a meeting.
Of course, it's not just this one. He has looked for all the mainstream domestic brands, hoping to form a community of interests to some extent through investment in exchange for Wanli Travel as pre-installed software on his mobile phone.
Another target that Lin Yi targeted was Zhalang Weibo. He found this company not because of any important synergy effect, but because he discovered how important it is to control public opinion when the scandal broke out some time ago.
If you can collude with Zhalang on Weibo, you will have a lot of room for maneuver next time you encounter this kind of thing.
The idea of Factory A is worth learning.
In addition, Liu Jianni also arranged a key strategy target which is insurance companies. In addition to the huge amount of money in the financial industry, it is also because Wanli Travel will provide accident insurance to passengers by default.
With the expansion of the company's scale, this has become a considerable business. As CFO, Liu Jianni discovered this from the company's financial structure and considered it an opportunity to deepen cooperation with insurance companies.
In short, after Lin Yi and Liu Jianni ran around, some companies were interested and some were not, so they gained something.
When the time comes to June, according to the previous plan, they should have concluded this round of financing.
"Come together, how much money do you have now?"
"Several institutions and companies we have visited so far have already given clear investment intentions of 600 million. In addition, Xiong Factory has also reported an intention of 600 million. Now we can get 1.2 billion US dollars at the end of the day.
"
After Liu Jiani finished reporting the situation, the conference room fell into silence for a while, with only the sound of Lin Yi's fingers tapping on the table one after another.
This amount is obviously far from their original goal. Lin Yi initially hoped to get US$2 billion in this round.
“How long is the window of time we have left to continue raising capital?”
"According to the company's current reserve funds, if the capital chain is not broken no matter how much money is made this month, we can squeeze out another one to two weeks at most."
"Too hasty."
Lin Yi immediately rejected the idea, because if he did this, the investors who had already agreed would feel that they were stretched thin, and there was no guarantee that they would not change their minds.
He quickly recognized the reality, and his subsequent decisions became easier to make.
"1.2 billion is 1.2 billion. This is not a small amount of money. If other companies could get such a large amount of financing, they would laugh. If we hesitate any longer, it would seem a bit hypocritical."
Seeing what Lin Yi said, the senior sister added: "According to the current average expenditure rate of US$160 million per month, this money can be used for about seven and a half months."
Lin Yiyi nodded: "Seven and a half months, not too much but not too little. The days ahead are long."
After the policy was set, Liu Jiani went to implement the US$1.2 billion with investors, but before that she asked again:
"After this financing is received, do we need to publicize it in a big way?"
This issue was not that difficult to consider. Lin Yi easily decided: "It can be publicized, but there is no need to make a big fanfare."
"We didn't do much publicity during our last round of financing. We simply released the news. The response from the media was very enthusiastic."
"Of course, this time it is estimated that it will not have that effect, because Uber has raised US$1 billion to US$1 billion, and obviously everyone's tolerance for numbers has improved a lot."
This is actually an interesting phenomenon. US$1.2 billion is undoubtedly a lot of money. You must know that the standard for unicorns is only US$1 billion, and it is a valuation.
But after everyone has seen it more, they have defaulted to applying different standards to the taxi-hailing industry.
Lin Yi didn't have time to study this kind of psychological state. He just needed to know what he should do in the situation at hand.
"If we don't publicize it, we will show our cowardice, and the investors who have just spent money will have a very bad premonition."
"We are simply worried that the amount of financing in this round of financing will be higher than ours. If we make too much noise now, we will inevitably be embarrassed."
"I have a strong hunch that this will happen with a high probability, but we cannot give way to Dudu in advance just because of this."
"Looking at it from another perspective, at least we still have seven and a half months to deal with Dudu, and there is no need to confront him head-on this time."
"We can definitely go and step on Uber."
"Anyway, we had already dealt with Uber and Kalanick openly at the end of last year, so it's normal to take advantage of him again this time, right?"
This is what Lin Yi said, and he also did this.
Soon after, Wanli Travel announced that it had completed a Series C financing of US$1.2 billion, with a post-money valuation of US$8 billion.
As expected, this news once again attracted the attention of the media, and Lin Yi accepted the interview without hesitation.
"How would you rate this round of financing from Wanli Travel? Is it considered a success?"
"Of course, I think the most successful part is that it taught our technology geek Mr. Kalanick a good lesson."
The reporter probably didn't expect that he would suddenly involve Kalanick, and quickly asked with interest: "What does this have to do with Uber? Do you have any story in this round of financing?"
Lin Yikang's statement: "The story is that a few months ago, Mr. Kalanick brazenly said that he would use US$1 billion to break into this market, and he looked like he had a lot of money."
"This round of financing from Wanli Travel has no other meaning. I just want to clearly tell Mr. Kalanick that at least in the ride-hailing market."