News that Weibo was going to conduct a round B financing spread quickly.

In 2008, there were few companies that could raise funds in China's Internet companies, and even fewer companies with large financing scales.

Weibo conducted a round of financing in the first half of 2008, and the amount of financing was not a small amount at that time.

Sequoia, Idg, Baidu and Victoria Harbor Funds accounted for 20% of the shares with US$240 million in cash and some technical support.

Based on cash flow alone, the Weibo valuation after financing is as high as US$1.2 billion.

However, Baidu has more technical and channel support. According to the financing amount of Sequoia and IG, Weibo's valuation was actually as high as US$1.4 billion at that time.

It has only been less than half a year since the last financing was successful.

The funds raised by Weibo are converted into RMB, which is nearly 1.7 billion yuan.

Logically speaking, Weibo is not so fast to burn money. Even if the international version is launched, the global channels are opened, and the promotion and development of Weibo is still less than 1.7 billion in half a year.

However, before financing, Li Dong had agreed with the other party.

He wants to use 1 billion yuan of the 1.7 billion yuan of capital he has raised, which is considered to be borrowed, with a term of one year.

Li Dong has not paid back this money now, at least it will not last until next year.

To be honest, 700 million yuan of funds are sometimes really spent.

Don’t look at Weibo, many people think that simply maintaining it is enough. If you get dozens of people, you will get a salary.

700 million, it will never be spent in my life.

But in fact, some things cost more than everyone imagines.

Internet companies burn money, this is not just empty talk.

Not to mention anything else, just to launch the development of Weibo's international version, add domestic servers, start intelligent big data review, and manual group review...

This series of cost-effective operations cost more than 300 million on Weibo.

And the remaining money is burned in the country.

The ability of Weibo users to exceed 200 million is not to say that word of mouth is enough.

Just the promotional field, pp, Yuanfang Portal, Yuanfang Mall, celebrity endorsement, ground advertising...

This series of actions also costs money, and it also costs a lot of money.

Driving traffic is not that simple.

It is not difficult to promote millions of registered users. Just promote it slightly. If tens of millions of users, you have to promote it. If the users exceed 100 million, it is not a simple promotion. There are many other things to assist.

Various activities, the development of various new functions, and the creation of some focus topics, all require operation.

The remaining hundreds of millions of funds were burned out soon.

However, whether it is Baidu, idg, or Sequoia, they are actually very satisfied.

What's the point of burning hundreds of millions!

value!

During the first round of Weibo financing, the registered users on Weibo had just exceeded 100 million, and after burning hundreds of millions, the number of Weibo users exceeded 200 million!

Double it!

Although the proportion of active users is slightly lower than before, the number of users has increased by 100 million, these financing institutions can wake up laughter.

According to the current market valuation of Internet companies, what is most important to self-media platforms like Weibo is the number of users.

The relationship between enterprise valuation and user volume is squared.

What does this mean?

In other words, the valuation of a website with 1 million users and a website with 10 million users of the same type is not a 10-fold difference, but a 10-fold square, which is a 100-fold gap!

A company with 1 million users is valued at 100 million, and a company with 10 million users can be valued at 10 billion!

Of course, this statement is not absolute, but it can also show the impact of the number of users on the company.

The number of users of Yuanfang Weibo has doubled. If this calculation method is used, Weibo's valuation can be squared based on 2 times, which means that the valuation will increase by 4 times.

It is obviously impossible to calculate this way.

But no matter what, I only burned 700 million yuan, and in exchange for such results, several investment institutions were naturally happy to find Beijing.

Now that Weibo has no money, the 1 billion Li Dong owes has not expired.

The second round of financing seems to be a little faster, but it is actually inevitable.

At least at this time, Weibo itself has not made many profit methods, mainly advertising revenue. This profit can not last long if it is used to burn money.

With the international version launched, it is time to use money, and we will continue to raise funds for Weibo. Whether it is Sequoia or IDC, including the other two, it is happy to see it.

If Li Dong hadn't had a strong personal style and strong capital, he might have been able to make suggestions without waiting for him to mention it himself.

To change to an Internet company, investment institutions have a great say in financing.

In order to ensure the safety of their funds, investors may recommend continuing financing before spending the money.

And no one mentioned it in the distance until this time. Seeing that there was no money on the books, it was not that Sequoia and the others didn't want it, but that it was just that they knew it and it was useless to say it.

Who is Li Dong?

If you take the initiative to mention this to him, he might not be too lazy to look at you directly.

If you have the ability, you can withdraw your investment. If you don’t want to withdraw your investment, you have to listen to Li Dong.

Only when he wants to raise funds can you continue to raise funds. He doesn't want to, either get out of here or continue to wait honestly, and there is no third way to go.

Now Li Dong has started a round B financing. Although the internal plan has not been released, several major investment institutions have brought people far away happily, wanting to hear what Li Dong said in detail.

...

Conference room.

Xiong Xiaoge, Shen Nanpeng and others led the team in person.

Sequoia and IG both invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the last round of financing, and this money is not a small amount.

Now Weibo is going to conduct a B round of financing, so they are not at ease to let their subordinates come over. If they really want their subordinates to come over, some things will be difficult to discuss.

Li Dong has always been relatively strong. If he offered any unacceptable conditions, he would not even have a chance to negotiate without them.

The facts were not beyond the expectations of several people.

As soon as they arrived, Li Dong held a meeting, and as soon as the meeting was held, the first condition was a little difficult for everyone to accept.

"On Weibo, I am planning to re-plan the total share capital and issue a portion of the share capital.

Previously, after raising funds, the total share capital was 140 million shares, with a price of US$10 per share.

Now the value of Weibo has increased sharply, the international version is launched, the number of users doubles, and the monthly active users have increased by 70%.

I gave a rough estimate in my mind, 2 billion US dollars.

So I plan to issue 70 million new shares, with a total share capital of 210 million shares.

Each share is still priced at US$10, Yuanfang holds 160 million shares, Sequoia and IG hold 14 million shares, Baidu holds 10 million shares, and Victoria Harbor holds 2 million shares."

After Li Dong finished speaking, he glanced at everyone and didn't say anything again.

According to Li Dong, some people may have doubts, isn’t it 210 million shares?

But now, according to the proportion, everyone holds only 200 million shares in total, and what about the remaining 10 million shares?

In fact, Li Dong doesn’t need to point out this point, the remaining equity capital is considered short equity.

These equity capitals, based on internal valuation, actually exceeded Li Dong's valuation of Weibo's 2 billion US dollars.

And what are these 10 million shares used for?

Option incentives!

Yes, option incentives do not mean that Li Dong alone is responsible for it, nor does it mean that the distant family is responsible for it, but that everyone must bear it.

In theory, it is not a big deal, it is an industry rule.

But Li Dongduo issued 10 million shares, which seemed that the value of the equity in their hands remained unchanged, and even the proportion of the equity in their hands remained unchanged compared to the far side.

But in fact, they took advantage of them.

10 million shares, according to Li Dong's price, that is 100 million US dollars!

Although the 100 million US dollars are not money now, they cannot be sold, but when they go public on Weibo, they will be counted as the total share capital.

By then, that's money.

Now I will distribute 100 million US dollars. When it goes public, it may be hundreds of millions or even billions of US dollars.

Option incentives have nothing to do with investors like them, and are only distributed to employees and executives from afar.

A small amount of option incentives can be accepted by everyone because it is a must.

10 million shares...

Well, it really depends on the ratio, but it is not high.
To be continued...