Chapter 107 Lead Investment Rights

The hotel bedroom was gray, and the skyline outside the window, a mixture of light and darkness, was called dusk at this moment.

Xie Jingxing sat on the bedside, staring out the window in a daze. He was woken up by Cheng Wei's phone call announcing the good news, and his mind was still not awake for a while.

Liu Qing officially completed the employment procedures and joined Didi. Didi and Kuaidi are in a confrontation. Now the two sides are burning nearly 50 million in cash every day. Kuaidi claims that its subsidies are always one yuan higher than Didi's.

The eldest and the second oldest are fighting, and the third oldest Bumblebee is about to be defeated.

Perhaps Mr. Li of Baidu started to feel sorry for the money again, as he has been slow to increase subsidies and has not taken any other actions.

On the phone, Liu Qing sat next to Cheng Wei and expressed confidence that if Baidu did not respond after another half a month, she would find a way to get Didi to acquire Bumblebee.

This is called strength. Xie Jingxing immediately said that he was ready to lie down and look forward to being taken away by Mr. Liu at any time. Cheng Wei's chubby face had a pair of small eyes with stars in them and a face full of happiness, as if he had married a New Oriental chef.

“Uber.”

In the dim bedroom, Xie Jingxing groped in the dark and picked up his phone to type the name in the memo. No matter what Baidu's Mr. Li planned, Uber was a big enemy that had not yet entered the game, and Uber's headquarters happened to be in San Francisco.

Do you want to contact us in advance?

A cool white light lit up in the bedroom, and Xie Jingxing's thoughts were interrupted. He tilted his head and looked at Song Anli, who was standing at the door with a tired face.

"what happened?"

He glanced at his watch. He still had a few hours before the cocktail party in the evening, so he could get some more sleep.

Song Anli lifted the hair beside her ears and said, "I can't sleep. Do you want to have some dinner?"

"Let's go to the restaurant and eat and get some fresh air."

Tonight's cocktail party is a buffet, so it's a good idea to eat something in advance to fill your stomach. Xie Jingxing was too tired to wash up, so he just put on a loose sportswear and a baseball cap.

It would have been fine if they could get into work mode right away without suffering the jet lag, but after taking an afternoon break to relax their bodies they felt overwhelmed by fatigue. Both of them were in a bad mood, and they went to the restaurant, ordered food, and stared at each other in silence.

"Mr. Xie, I may really need a partner as soon as possible." Song Anli broke the silence, blinking her eyes with tiny bloodshot eyes.

She didn't rest in the afternoon and was busy sorting out the relevant legal documents of Grapefruit Capital (USA). Her work efficiency was very low and she had to look up dictionaries and translations to understand some professional terms. It was obviously not going to work this way.

Xie Jingxing did not comment. Grapefruit America currently has only one employee, his university teacher Stiglitz, who is also a part-time strategic consultant.

Next, we rented an office on Sand Hill Road and became neighbors with Sequoia. It would be easy to recruit an investment team and a few middle and back-end employees according to the scale of the Grapefruit Magic City office. We could just spend some money to hire a law firm to do everything perfectly.

The question is what exactly is the positioning of Grapefruit America. If it is a purely domestic dollar fund, it can just build a framework in Silicon Valley; if it wants to expand the investment scope to the world, it will need to form an investment team that can really get the job done.

Xie Jingxing certainly doesn't want to be limited to the so-called "dollar fund". There are many investment opportunities in Southeast Asia in the next three to five years. Tencent has supported a small overlord, and Alibaba has integrated agents... Various venture capital unicorns have also emerged in North America, but the problem is that he doesn't have enough energy to seize all the opportunities...

"I'll arrange an assistant partner for you as soon as possible." Xie Jingxing said hesitantly.

If there is a talented person who can make a living and stand on his own in the United States, he can choose the second route without hesitation. Unfortunately, such a talented person looks down on grapefruit.

So we need to set up the framework of Grapefruit’s Sand Hill Road office as soon as possible. Song Anli is very talented but too young, so we need to find her an experienced partner to help her find and fill in the gaps.

"Hi, do you mind sharing a table?" As the two were talking, a skinny, yellow-skinned woman in a suit who looked to be in her 40s or 50s came over and greeted them in Mandarin with a Hong Kong accent.

Xie Jingxing looked around at the large number of empty dining tables: "Excuse me, what can I do for you?"

"I like to dine by the window, but the waiter told me that window seats with a view need to be reserved in advance." The woman explained with a friendly smile.

Xie Jingxing nodded and waved to the waiter: "Now you have reserved a window viewing seat."

"…Okay, then can you share a table with me?"

The woman continued undeterred, "I think we may have a chance to work together. Let me introduce myself. I'm Zhou Kaixuan, a partner at Horizons Ventures. You can call me Solina."

"Hello."

Song Anli's fatigue instantly disappeared and she nodded excitedly. The senior in front of her, who was known as Li Ka-shing's confidante, was the template of the heroine in female online novels. She was known as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world and her net worth was said to be over 10 billion.

Xie Jing Xing calmly took out twenty dollars from his trouser pocket to send the waiter away, and then looked at her: "Please sit down."

"Yuan Zheng called me and said that he hoped that our two companies would invest together in the Series B financing. I think this proposal is worth discussing."

Zhou Kaixuan changed his mind and got straight to the point: "I happened to be on a business trip to San Francisco to attend an investment summit, so I asked him for the address of this hotel and rushed over to meet you."

"When you say it's worth discussing, do you mean the lead investment right?" Xie Jingxing didn't care how she appeared out of thin air, as this was considered a traditional skill in the venture capital circle.

Zhou Kaixuan's momentum stagnated slightly, and he looked him up and down: "Of course, this is the most worthy point to discuss."

"We have to admit that Yuan Zheng is a very decisive founder. Do you agree with this?" Xie Jingxing asked.

Zhou Kaixuan raised his eyebrows to indicate his agreement. Yuan Zheng was able to make the decision to take everything right after meeting Xie Jingxing. No matter what the reason was that prompted him to do so, it was enough to prove that he was very decisive and not verbose.

Xie Jingxing put down the knife in his hand and continued to ask: "ZOOM is an excellent startup company, do you agree with this?"

"..."

Zhou Kaixuan shrugged in confusion. In fact, Boss Li was not optimistic about this project. It was she who insisted on investing after Yu Min and his wife met with Yuan Zheng several times. If she did not approve of ZOOM, why would she go through so much trouble?

Xie Jingxing pondered for a few seconds: "Out of recognition for the founder and the company, I am willing to make concessions in terms of financing, with a valuation of 80 million US dollars in exchange for the right to lead the investment."

Zhou Kaixuan was stunned for a moment, and seemed to want to say something but hesitated, not knowing what to say. This was indeed a concession, but also a demonstration.

Because she couldn't raise the price again based on this valuation on the spot, and since Yuan Zheng decided to let Grapefruit Capital come in, he would definitely be happy to accept this valuation on the spot.

"In fact, we shouldn't be in a negotiating relationship." Xie Jingxing added at the end.

It's weird that she could actually come to negotiate the financing share as an investor on behalf of Yuan Zheng. It's really magical.

Zhou Kaixuan fell silent. Before she could put into practice the speech she had prepared before coming here, this rich second-generation man in front of her directly used money to attack her, which made her feel a little aggrieved.

Reluctantly consoling herself in her heart that ZOOM was not a big project, and that a slight retreat would be considered making a friend, she adjusted her attitude and asked, "I wonder what Mr. Xie thinks of the venture capital market in the Middle East?"

(End of this chapter)