Chapter 108 Loyalty only to the US dollar
It’s the Middle East again, but the Middle East Zhou Kaixuan mentioned is not the poor and backward Sudan, but the little bullies in the Middle East such as Israel.

In recent years, many top venture capital firms including Horizons Ventures and Sequoia Capital have opened offices in the Middle East. The former has focused on "Israel first" and has invested in all industries in Israel, from infrastructure and energy to the Internet and high-tech.

North America and Europe are second priority, and the domestic market is not considered at all.

This move resulted in Horizons Ventures becoming less well-known in China, but its brand name is quite useful in the U.S. venture capital and financial circles, and everyone who sees it in public gives it some face.

Zhou Kaixuan believes that she was decisive and proactive in giving in and becoming a follow-up investor in ZOOM's current round of financing, which gave enough face to the talented young people from the mainland, but the other party did not seem to appreciate it and reacted too indifferently.

"We found a project in Israel, which is the Internet taxi-hailing product you are familiar with. Are you interested, Mr. Xie?" she further said.

Xie Jingxing raised the brim of his baseball cap: "Solina, please pass me some black pepper, yes, and salt."

He took the black pepper and slowly sprinkled it on the half-eaten steak. Zhou Kaixuan looked at him, then at Song Anli, who was sitting next to him with a curious and prying look in her eyes, and nodded thoughtfully.

Silently waiting until Xie Jingxing finished his meal, she raised her hand and called the waiter for a piece of paper and a pen, and quickly wrote down the contact information: "The project I mentioned does not have as broad a market prospect as similar domestic products, but it is easy to exit. If Mr. Xie is interested, you can contact me at any time."

Watching Zhou Kaixuan leave in a graceful manner, Song Anli couldn't help but feel a little dazed.

At noon, Sequoia's most popular venture guy in Silicon Valley was walking on the side of the road and casually eating a sandwich for lunch. After saying the business in a few words, he turned around and left without any hesitation. In the evening, this strong woman was even more powerful and didn't even drink a sip of water.

What's wrong with these big guys? Song Anli put away the note on the table in disappointment.

"Aren't you hungry?" Xie Jingxing reminded her while looking at the steak on her plate which was barely touched.

Song Anli came back to her senses, picked up her knife and fork, and said in a tangled tone: "So we got the lead investment rights for ZOOM just like that?"

"What would you do if you were Zhou Kaixuan?" Xie Jingxing asked back.

Song Anli was speechless. After thinking about it carefully, it seemed that there was no good solution.

Xie Jingxing confidently said that ZOOM's return on investment was a hundred times, and he was confident that he could still make money by valuing ZOOM at US$1 billion. In this case, it would be useless even if Zhou Kaixuan went crazy, and Li Ka-shing would have to be suffering from Alzheimer's disease before he would dare to compete head-on with him.

Mr. Li, the richest man, has lived a comfortable life in the past two years and seems very wise. So the most Zhou Kaixuan can do is to target the founder and play the emotional card with Yuan Zheng to buy time.

Yuan Zheng’s reaction is also very interesting. He wants the money from both Victoria Harbour and Grapefruit.

So in short, the outcome of this project was already determined when she found the letter of intent for investment signed by ZOOM and Horizon Ventures. It only depended on how much Xie Jingxing was willing to pay and when he chose to let the result appear.

The valuation of 80 million US dollars and the lead investment rights are still within the acceptable price range.

Xie Jingxing stretched lazily with satisfaction: "You will follow up on this project."

"I don't think I'm suitable." Song Anli blushed and felt a little embarrassed.

The fact that Yuan Zheng was able to react so quickly and choose to come clean clearly showed that her little trick of gathering intelligence in the morning had been discovered.

Xie Jingxing couldn't help laughing: "If you didn't find the letter of intent, it was Yuan Zheng who was fishing in Victoria Harbour while talking to us. It's not embarrassing to talk business. We are the ones who invest in risks and we only need to be loyal to the US dollar."

"...Then why don't you talk to Mr. Zhou about the project she mentioned?" Song Anli couldn't accept this statement for the time being.

Xie Jing Xing thought for a moment and explained, “Chicken ribs.”

One month before he snatched WhatsApp from Zuckerberg, Google also hit Zuckerberg with a blow by competing with Facebook and spending $1 billion to acquire the crowdsourcing map product "Waze" from Israel. Horizons Ventures was an early investor in the company. The media said that Google was able to steal the chicken because Facebook wanted to move the technical team of "Waze" to the United States, but Google had a branch in Israel, not only a branch but also a startup incubator. Many American Internet giants are particularly willing to acquire Israeli peers.

As the saying goes, investment projects that do not talk about exit are rogues. The conventional exit methods for venture capital are nothing more than listing and mergers and acquisitions. This is what Zhou Kaixuan just said, that the prospects are limited but the exit is easy, and it is also the reason why Sequoia and other leading institutions flocked to Israel to develop the market.

The Jews have connections all over the world, and someone is backing them up...

But this was meaningless to Xie Jingxing. Without the advantage, there was only chicken ribs left. He hadn't finished the big steak on his plate yet, so why bother eating the chicken skeleton outside.

"But it seems that our recent work has been effective." He suddenly thought of something and added.

Song Anli looked at his slightly smug expression and said in tacit understanding, "Fame!"

"Correct answer." Xie Jingxing gave a thumbs up.

Horizons Ventures always invests in early-stage projects, with single investments often below US$10 million, and they like to bring in peers to invest together.

Online ride-hailing is a money-burning business. The reason Zhou Kaixuan mentioned the online ride-hailing project today is probably because he values ​​the investment style of Grapefruit Capital, which has invested tens of millions of dollars in a single investment in online ride-hailing in China.

This is exactly what Xie Jingxing wants to get in return beyond money from working for Didi. It is now brewing little by little, and will become more and more in the future.

Song Anli felt proud of it. She rested her chin on her hand, tilted her head and looked at him with her rosy lips pursed. Her cell phone vibrated at an inopportune time. It was a message from Yuan Zheng, who wanted to arrange a time to meet as soon as possible.

"What do you think?" Xie Jingxing was in a good mood and started teaching mode.

Song Anli blinked her big eyes: "This guy is not honest. He should at least give us a heads up before Zhou Kaixuan comes to see us."

"He wants to make an appointment to meet as soon as possible just to explain to you." Xie Jingxing deliberately gave the opposite opinion.

Song Anli sat up straight and supported her chin with her fingers crossed and said seriously: "So I plan to compromise and give him a video conference opportunity first to see if his attitude is sincere before making a decision."

"What if he is indeed dishonest?" Xie Jingxing continued to ask.

Song Anli boldly expressed her thoughts: "Normally I would not invest in such a founder, but since I have to invest, I can only find an opportunity to give him a warning."

"How do you knock?" Xie Jingxing laughed with interest.

Song Anli thought for a moment: "Well... check his accounts. We have to have the right to audit the finances twice a year. The accounts of startups like them are generally not standardized, so there must be a lot of small problems."

"It's a solution, but it's slow to take effect and can easily intensify conflicts." Xie Jingxing reminded.

Song Anli was not discouraged. She frowned and said, "After the investment agreement is officially signed, it will take time to complete the equity and capital transfer. How about delaying it for ten days or half a month?"

"You can go and have a video conference with him."

Xie Jingxing took off his baseball cap and put it on her head, then stood up and leisurely went back to his room to take a nap.

All the projects he invested in before were settled by payment immediately after the investment agreement was signed. This is not the norm in the industry, and it is very normal for the process to take several weeks. This was just the right amount of pressure to hit Yuan Zheng, confusing him without hurting his brain.

(End of this chapter)