Lin Yi didn't know yet that Liu Qing had returned to China. During this period, he was intensively communicating with Factory A, mainly Cai Chongxin and his investment team, about this life-and-death cooperation.
Although he had lamented how arrogant Factory A was beforehand, when things came to an end, Lin Yi realized that he had underestimated the other party's generosity.
In December, negotiations between Wanli Travel and Factory A were still in progress, but Zhang Xuhao, whom Lin Yi had met when he first went there, was obviously progressing faster and had already been announced.
How much money did he get?
$1.25 billion!
This is a huge amount of financing that has never been achieved before in the food delivery and group buying industries, and it has only been four months since Hungry.com’s last round of financing.
Throughout 2015, it was an extremely active and prosperous year for startups in the technology industry and the venture capital market, with many high-profile mergers and record-breaking financing results.
Despite this, the deal of Are You Hungry is still one of the top deals, and its level of attention may be second only to the US$2.4 billion that everyone almost received in July this year.
This financing also shows that this round of industry reshuffle marked by the merger of Meituan and Dianping has been completed quickly.
For two months, each group and Are You Hungry exchanged owners in a dazzling way before the outside world could react?
Of course, some people are lamenting that it’s not just the taxi-hailing industry that’s finally making big money this year.
It is not too early to say this.
Because although the negotiations between Lin Yi and Factory A are in progress, they are not expected to be completed in 2015, and their biggest point of disagreement lies in Factory A’s investment share.
Don't get me wrong, they didn't give too little, they gave too much.
"Factory A hopes that they will cover this round of financing for Wanli Travel without having to find other institutions to get an extra penny."
"Strictly speaking, this is not their suggestion, but a requirement. This is the only plan they have proposed. If they disagree, they would rather not vote for it."
Factory A's style has always been domineering, and the negotiation situation reported by Liu Jianni was not too unexpected.
“What do they have to say about the valuation?”
"I don't have any objections. I basically agree with the valuation plan and results we proposed with existing investors."
Lin Yi said simply: "Then there's nothing to say. He may not vote, but we can't."
"If Factory A wants to get more equity, let him take it. I probably know what Ma Jack is thinking. If there is no loss in valuation, just give it to him."
Once this issue was resolved, there were no substantial obstacles between the two parties, so in January 2016, the matter was finally settled.
Wanli Travel officially announced that it has completed the D-round financing amounting to US$2 billion. The investors are Factory A and its affiliated company Financial Services.
Although the post-money valuation of this round has not been announced, the basic news of such a major financing is easy to find out. The media quickly reported that Wanli Travel’s valuation in this round has reached US$12 billion.
It’s not high, it’s only equivalent to Dudu’s level almost half a year ago.
In contrast, the outside world is obviously more interested in this round of investors, namely Factory A, because he is also an important shareholder of Dudu Kuaidu.
Now that we have invested so much in Wanli Travel at the same time, isn’t it like fighting against each other?
In this regard, Factory A has no obligation to explain its investment strategy to the outside world. When Wanli Travel was asked by the media, Lin Yi simply explained:
"The two strategic investors in this round are firmly optimistic about the future and development of the taxi-hailing industry, so they spare no expense to support this judgment."
"As for the equity relationship you mentioned between them and other peers, I am not in a position to comment on this. Please check with the other party."
Lin Yi didn't care about the stage of the relationship between Factory A and Dudu. Normally, they should have withdrawn from each other's shareholders' meeting.
This news did not go silent due to the avoidance of the parties involved, because soon another news came to add fuel to the fire.
In the same month, Uber A, which was previously spun off from Uber, announced that it had independently completed its second round of financing, amounting to US$2 billion.
This is outrageous.
Although Lin Yi heard Cheng Wei say when he was in the United States that Uber had raised its goal to 2.5 billion US dollars because of the previous financing, he did not expect that they could actually reach 2 billion US dollars.
And so fast.
Some keen media have already concluded that Uber A is not the Uber global headquarters in the United States, but just a subsidiary spun off in the region, which has raised a total of US$3.2 billion in half a year.
They did another calculation and found that the total amount of public financing Wanli Travel has reached since its founding in 2013 has reached US$4.1 billion.
As for Dudu Kuadu, counting from the financing process of the two companies before the merger, their cumulative amounts are also similar.
In other words, while ignoring the hundreds of taxi-hailing software companies that emerged early but were quickly squeezed out, the cumulative historical financing amount of just the top three companies in the industry has exceeded US$10 billion!
This discovery was simply shocking.
10 billion is still US dollars. Even in the IT world, no industry has ever seen such large-scale financing before.
"What's even more frightening is that we have yet to see any signs of stopping this money-burning war, because in the past year, the subsidies of the three major players have continued unabated."
"jean, what do you think?"
Liu Qing made her first public appearance since returning to work in late January, and it is inevitable that she will be asked about hotly discussed topics recently.
"I know there are many people who think this kind of money-burning competition in the ride-hailing industry is unhealthy, and therefore question whether there is real profitability in this industry."
"This kind of worry is completely unnecessary, because from the perspective of investors, they are willing to keep spending money to support it precisely because they are firmly optimistic."
"Everyone should believe in the professional vision of the entire investment industry. This is not an attempt by one or two institutions, but a common choice by everyone."
"As for when you said it will stop, I may be a little more optimistic than you. If an industry wants to develop stably in the long term, it should be in an orderly manner. That day will not be too far away."
Today their focus is on Liu Qing’s comeback, so the interviewer asked:
"Wanli Travel and Uber announced two big news as a recovery gift when you just returned to work. It seems to be very unfriendly to both of you."
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"What do you have to say about this, Jean?"
Liu Qing said with ease: "As competitors, of course they won't have any scruples about this, and I won't be pretentious and think they are targeting me."
"Wanli Travel and Uber are both very respectable competitors. On the contrary, I believe that only by developing together with such peers can the industry really get better and better."
"I also look forward to the early realization of the optimistic goal just mentioned with the efforts of all of us."