Green's offices in Silicon Valley are filled with investors, and there are nearly 20 current shareholders alone.
The largest shareholder is Zhang Yida personally, and other larger shareholders include Penguin, Blackshirt Capital, etc., all holding more than 5% of the shares;
Shareholders with smaller shareholdings include Happy Capital, Li Bing, Fu Weiwei and other former Mobike shareholders, all holding less than 1% of the shares.
White, the investment representative of Google Ventures, saw such a lively scene and immediately said humorously, "Guys, this scene doesn't look like a financing meeting, but like a party."
"Mr. White, I disagree with you. There are so many shareholders behind Green, which shows that the company is highly sought after by investors."
Shen Beipeng replied calmly.
"Shen, you have no sense of humor." White spread his hands, "I was just joking, and I didn't mean anything else."
"Okay, gentlemen and ladies, please be quiet for a moment."
Green's CEO Howard made a "stop" gesture, and all investors fell silent.
Howard asked his assistant to send a company operation report to all investors and began to introduce the company's basic situation:
“Green currently operates a total of 121,236 shared electric scooters, covering 25 large and medium-sized cities such as San Francisco, New York, and Boston.
There are a total of 342 employees at the headquarters, including more than 20,000 registered crowdsourced chargers.
We have also established supply chain and R&D teams in Kunshan and Tianjin, China..."
After Howard introduced Green's basic profile, Lewis Hamilton, the investment representative sent by Uber, asked: "OK, let's talk about Green's valuation now."
"In terms of valuation, we believe Green's pre-money valuation should be US$1 billion."
After hearing what Howard said, Google's White shook his head, "Mr. Howard, Green only has 120,000 scooters in total. Does it cost $8,000 to build a scooter?"
As far as I know, this thing can be made in Kunshan or Tianjin, China, for less than $400!"
Howard chuckled twice, "Mr. White, you are valuing us as a manufacturing company.
I want to emphasize that Green is a technology company of "intelligent hardware + Internet of Things + cloud unlocking".
In addition, during the establishment process, Huimin Travel Group invested more than US$100 million in us.
In addition to these, Green's most valuable thing is its creativity. We are the world's first shared electric scooter company.
You should have heard of Mr. Zhang Yida of China, a young man who is comparable to Zuckerberg.
During the founding of Green, he provided many forward-looking opinions, including the anti-theft structure of scooters, crowdsourcing chargers, etc.
If all of this is added up, isn’t it worth US$1 billion?”
Uber's Hamilton said: "Mr. Howard, what you said is also true, and we admit it.
Green is the world's first shared electric scooter company, but it is not without challengers.
Lime and Bird have both completed product research and development and are seeking financing. In the near future, they may pose a considerable threat to Green."
"We are not afraid of any challenge!"
Howard smiled: "First of all, we are the first to share the concept of electric scooters, and we are also the first to crowdsource chargers.
We understand this industry better than any other company.
The most important thing is that we are almost a year ahead of them."
"Sir, the temporary lead doesn't mean anything." White shrugged, "Yahoo was so arrogant in the past, and it wasn't because we, Google, defeated it;
Also, the Netscape browser used to have such a high market share, but Microsoft didn’t teach it how to be a good person.
When users abandon you, they won’t even say goodbye.”
Why are you pretending to be a big-tailed wolf? Howard thought to himself, he just wanted to lower the price and dug out all these old things.
"We are not Yahoo, nor Netscape." Howard said plausibly, "We will not give our competitors any chance to make a comeback."
"Green still has plenty of cash on its books, amounting to tens of millions of dollars."
Howard looked at White and Hamilton and said, "Gentlemen, guess why we still need to raise funds when we have so much money?"
Without waiting for the two to reply, Howard continued: "We have big moves, big moves that require hundreds of millions of dollars to support.
We want to enter the European market and globalize Green's business."
"OK, I admit that Green's team is a very good team and works very efficiently."
White added: "But a company that was founded less than a year ago became a unicorn so quickly. This is too sensational and goes against common sense!"
"Sir, some rules are meant to be broken."
Howard laughed and said: "Does Yahoo think that one day it will be dethroned by a company that is not worth a million dollars?"
White laughed. This has almost become a joke in Silicon Valley. Back then, Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to sell Google's core technology search algorithm to Yahoo for $1 million.
As a result, it was rejected by Yahoo, thinking that it already has a search portal and does not need anything else. Moreover, Yahoo thought that if Google's search is so good, why don't you use it yourself?
When things didn't sell, the two founders of Google started searching on their own, and then indirectly killed Yahoo.
Except for Yahoo's one smart investment in Ali, its other investments were absolutely terrible.
Even if he missed out on Google, he lowered the price and failed to acquire Facebook, and missed out on selling to Microsoft at a high price...
These things are all familiar to this group of Silicon Valley investors.
Seeing that Howard has been undercut by investors from Google and Uber, shareholders like Shen Beipeng can no longer stand it.
Shen Beipeng said: "Huimin Travel conducted a Series C round of financing after spinning off Green, and its Series C investors valued Green at US$1 billion. In the end, Huimin Travel subtracted US$1 billion from the total valuation.
"
"Mr. White, Mr. Hamilton, Google and Uber all want to do something big in the travel field, so why do they lack Green, an ally for short-distance travel?"
Xu Xiaoming also did some homework, analyzed the investment motivations of Google and Uber, and revealed the true meaning in one sentence.
Google has Google Maps, has also invested in Uber, and is still working on driverless cars. It is obvious that it is interested in the travel field.
Needless to say, Uber is engaged in online ride-hailing all over the world. China’s Didi also wants to make shared bicycles bigger and stronger, let alone Uber.
"Mr. Shen, Mr. Xu, you two also want to participate in Green's Series A financing?" White asked.
"Of course, Green is a company we are very optimistic about. We will definitely not miss this high-quality project."
Shen Beipeng also nodded, agreeing with Xu Xiaoming's remarks.
For the two of them, they invested in the golden rooster of Huimin Travel, but unexpectedly they also laid the golden egg of Green.
It feels like no money was spent. One investment was exchanged for holding shares in two companies.
Huimin Travel spun off Green. This kind of unicorn-incubated unicorn is relatively rare in the world.
Such a small probability event has happened to them, and they feel quite lucky.
And looking at the development trend of Green, it also has very good development prospects. Of course, the two of them will not miss this investment opportunity.
“Penguin also wants to participate in the investment!”
“SoftBank will also participate in the investment!”
“GIC will also invest!”
"We still need Gaoling Capital!"
…
When other investors saw Shen and Xu speaking out, they also expressed their stance.
Howard also smiled and said: "Mr. White, Mr. Hamilton, you have also seen that Green has no shortage of investors to pursue.
We are willing to choose Uber and Google, and we also hope that we can form a strategic partnership with each other."
"All right!"
Hamilton nodded, "We at Uber agree with this valuation, but there is a condition."
"What conditions?" Howard asked.
"We hope that Green can develop some technical connections with the Uber application software, so that Uber users can rent Green scooters through our company's application software."
"It's a great idea, why not?
Howard stood up and shook Hamilton's hand with a smile.
"Hopefully this valuation doesn't make us, Google, a joke in Silicon Valley."
Howard smiled and replied: "Looking back in a few years, this must be another glorious event in your investment career, Mr. White."
"I hope so!"
Google and Uber, which led the investment, agreed to a valuation of US$1 billion, and the original shareholders had no objections.
Soon, a US$250 million Series A financing was finalized, with Google and Uber each leading US$100 million.
The US$50 million co-investment share is difficult to divide. Zhenke Fund, Blackshirt Capital, SoftBank, Penguin, GIC, Silver Lake Capital, Warburg Pincus and many other investment institutions want to get more shares.
After arguing for a long time, more than a dozen investment institutions finally divided the US$50 million equally.
"By the way, there is one more question."
White said suddenly.
The investors present all turned their attention, and White continued: "I have seen the current share composition, and excluding the dilution of the Series A financing, the option pool is only 4%.
Such a small share is not enough to motivate the management team."
Howard was immediately impressed by White, who was "tricky and mean" just now. The boss is so awesome!
Seeing that Green's original shareholders didn't say anything, White knew that this was diluting their shares and would be unpleasant to anyone else.
White doesn't care so much. Resetting the option pool before financing is also beneficial to Google and avoids dilution of shares.
White continued: "It stands to reason that the company's option pool should not be so small.
Mainly because Green was under the control of Huimin Travel, which caused the option pool to be diluted.
Green is just a start-up company that has been established for less than a year, and the Series A financing has not yet been completed. Only 4% of the option pool is not enough to provide performance incentives to management and recruit talents. "
The shareholders who came over from Huimin Travel did not say anything. They were also thinking about this "historical legacy" issue. The 4% option pool was indeed a little too small.
"The option pool of startup companies generally reserves 10%-20%. Considering that Green is already a unicorn, you can take the lowest value of 10% as appropriate.
I suggest that the original shareholders who came from Huimin Travel replenish the option pool to 10%.
Then raise Series A financing!”
Hamilton echoed: "Mr. White is right, the option pool needs to be set up first so that the investment talents from both our parties can come in."
“Why don’t we discuss setting up an option pool after the A-round financing is completed?”
Xu Xiaoming started to act foolishly, "The A round of financing has been negotiated today, let's get down to business first!"