Chapter 835 [Headline, must control it]
People have discovered that almost all major hot events in the recent period have a close relationship with Qunxing Capital. Whether it is the black swan event in the global capital market some time ago, the medical field or the current Internet industry, it can be said that they are happening one after another.
However, Fang Hong no longer pays much attention to these matters. Decisions have been made and the next specific matters will depend on the progress of the people under his command. These will take time.
And Fang Hong has shifted his attention to another company, and this company is still a rising star in the Internet industry.
During afternoon tea time, Fang Hong was sitting in the leisure area of the living room on the first floor of the villa. At the moment, he was reading an article from early June this year, titled "Today's Toutiao, whose "Toutiao" is the editorial?" The content of the article accuses Toutiao of infringing the copyright of the newspaper media.
And just the day before, Dayang.com, a subsidiary of a local newspaper group, directly used legal weapons to announce a lawsuit against the company where Toutiao is located for copyright infringement.
Later, the portal website Souhu joined the lawsuit against Toutiao for copyright infringement, and this incident even alarmed the National Copyright Administration at the time.
In the final analysis, Toutiao's users have grown so fast that today, two years after its birth, it has triggered a denunciation of it by traditional media and online media. This is a challenge that a company must face when it rises. The same is true for Quantum Jump, but Quantum Jump is now prominent, and the headlines are still unknown.
Compared with the setbacks in small companies in the past, Mr. Zhang, the founder of Toutiao, who has already become famous, encountered his first big test since he founded Toutiao.
In 2012, Toutiao was launched. In the same year, smartphones surpassed computers for the first time and became the largest network terminal. The growth of WeChat users under Quantum Beat was soaring. Alibaba delisted in Hong Kong. Shanda also took the initiative to delist from Nasdaq. The competitive pressure of Yixing Video and other problems caused Youku and Tudou to announce their merger; Momo quickly rose to social media among strangers, Xiaomi mobile phone also sold a hot model this year, and Internet giants such as BAT also began to deploy terminals , systems, stores, and applications for the entire mobile ecosystem.
Also that year, Facebook went public on Nasdaq, and Zuckerberg began to rule the international social network.
The wheel of history is rolling forward. Mr. Zhang, who has missed the tide of the PC Internet, has not missed the outlet of the mobile Internet era again.
In 2010, there were fewer and fewer people reading and selling newspapers on the subway. There were still some at the beginning of the year, but almost none at the end of the year. In the same year, with the rapid rise of Xingyu Technology, the first generation of the STAR series was launched. The advent of a product that changed the world accelerated the explosion of the domestic mobile Internet era.
By 2011, smartphone shipments soared, reaching the combined shipments of smartphones in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Mr. Zhang thought that this was a change in information dissemination media, and mobile phones were likely to It will replace paper media as the main carrier of information dissemination.
And because of the corresponding relationship between people and mobile phones, mobile phones are carried everywhere, and the demand for personalized recommendations will definitely increase, so Mr. Zhang founded "Today's Toutiao", a recommendation engine based on big data and a tool to connect information and people.
Just like Facebook founded by Zuckerberg connects people, Quantum Jump’s Jiuzhouxing connects people and cars, and Toutiao is a more extensive and efficient match between information and people.
But at this moment, Fang Hong saw Tian Jiayi coming over. He glanced at it and then looked away and continued to read the editorial article that had been published for several months. At the same time, he said without raising his head: "Now is a good opportunity to win today's headlines. Send Wu Cheng to lead a team to talk to Mr. Zhang and acquire Toutiao."
Tian Jiayi was slightly stunned: "Acquisition of Toutiao? We just led the investment in early June this year."
It is worth mentioning that it has been more than two years since Toutiao was founded, but it has completed four rounds of financing.
On March 9, 2012, it received millions of yuan in angel round financing from Source Code Capital and others; on July 1, 2012, it received $1 million in Series A financing from SIG Haina Asia Venture Capital Fund. ; On September 1, 2013, it received US$10 million in Series B financing from DST-Global and Qihu 360, the “red leader”.
The latest round of financing was completed on June 1 this year. Toutiao sold 20% of its equity and received US$100 million in financing. It was led by Quantum Beat, a subsidiary of Qunxing Capital, and other investors also participated in the investment. There are Sequoia Capital, Shunwei Capital, etc., with a post-investment valuation of US$500 million, which is about more than 3 billion yuan.
Nowadays, the headlines have indeed become very popular. Mr. Zhang has also become a rising star in the Internet industry. All investors are optimistic about him as a potential stock. Although the previous four entrepreneurial failures have failed, this time it feels like he is really It can work.
Several capital institutions that have invested in the company have made several deductions about its follow-up.
In the future headlines, in the best case scenario, it is not impossible for companies like Weibo and LeTV to independently fight against BAT, and it is not impossible for them to even grow into the highly successful Quantum Beat today. There is a new saying in the current Internet circle: BATL, the "L" is Quantum Beat, which is on an equal footing with the previous three giants.
The worst-case scenario for Toutiao in the future is that it will most likely choose to side with one of the BATL companies and be acquired by one of them, and both investors and entrepreneurs will be able to escape unscathed.
All in all, even in the worst case, investing in Toutiao will not lose money.
Fang Hong closed the page of the editorial article and picked up a document placed in front of his laptop. It was a business plan for Toutiao. The date showed that it was published in January 2013.
"I started paying attention to the company a year after it was born. New media based on social mining and personalized recommendations, this is its founder's definition of the product, which coincides with me." Fang Hong re-focused on that. He put the document back in its place. He had already read it.
Fang Hong paused for a moment and added: "For this company, if the investment cannot be just financial investment, if I want to invest, I need control. Otherwise, I will not invest, and I will hunt it down with similar competing products before it takes off. "
Tian Jiayi was quite surprised, it could be seen that he was very optimistic about this company.
After a while, Fang Hong said with a smile: "Let's talk about it first. If we can acquire it, acquire it. Now this stall is in big trouble. I heard that Mr. Zhang is visiting the media and regulatory authorities intensively recently." , is when he is most uncomfortable, we might as well make him feel more uncomfortable."
At the same time, Fang Hong retrieved the memory information from his past life in his mind. He remembered that Mr. Zhang had thought about selling Toutiao three times. He had already participated in four start-up companies before founding Toutiao, but he failed every time. Didn't stick to it until the end.
If Fang Hong had not intervened, Mr. Zhang would most likely not have sold Toutiao, and if he persevered, Toutiao would have become an Internet giant with a valuation of at least over RMB 500 billion in a few years.
But in the current situation, Fang Hong obviously wants to push him to sell Toutiao, and his attitude is very clear, either buy it or kill it.
Qunxing Capital’s previous participation in Toutiao’s investment is definitely more than simply seeking financial investment.
At this time, Fang Hong said while thinking: "First find the boss of 360, find a suitable person to encourage the leader in red to let Qihu 360 divest, and then let him know that Qunxing Capital plans to go it alone and directly Compete with the headlines, withdraw quickly, if you don't run, it will be too late, lest you fall into your hands..."
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