As the saying goes: "A thousand-mile horse often exists, but a talent does not always exist." How did today's Internet giant BAT find the talent that appreciates them?
Baidu Baidu: DFJ is a noble person, but the "angel" is it... Baidu was registered in the Cayman Islands in January 2000. After three rounds of financing, it was listed on the NASDAQ in the United States in August 2005.
, which made Defengjie, the largest shareholder holding 25.3% of Baidu's shares at the time, the biggest winner.
However, as Baidu's largest investor, Defengjie was not the first to discover Baidu.
At the beginning of the financing, Robin Li chose an investment institution with a US background called Peninsula Capital Fund.
But partners at this investment institution have doubts about Robin Li's technology.
It wasn't until I learned that Robin Li was one of the top three experts in the world's search engine field that I gave up my doubts and decided to invest.
Later, Peninsula Capital Fund brought in another investment institution, Integrity Partners.
In February 2000, these two VC institutions jointly invested US$1.2 million in Baidu (US$600,000 each).
Therefore, Peninsula Capital Fund is Baidu’s real angel investor.
Of course, Baidu has also brought extremely generous returns to its "angels". When it was listed in 2005, Peninsula Capital Fund's first round investment of US$600,000 had doubled 108 times, with an average annual return of 134.27%.
Alibaba Ali: Goldman Sachs gave Ali its first money, but miscalculated and sold the shares at a low price. In 1999, Tsai Chongxin, who gave up hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual salary to join Ali, successfully "handled" Goldman Sachs through his personal resources and finalized the first investment for Ali.
.
Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Invest AB and the Singapore Government Technology Development Fund jointly invested US$5 million in exchange for 40% of Alibaba's equity.
This "angel investment" not only solved Jack Ma's urgent need, but also attracted a US$20 million investment from SoftBank for Alibaba.
By 2004, the bursting of the Internet bubble made Goldman Sachs pessimistic about the prospects of China's e-commerce. GGV took over its stake in Alibaba and cashed out US$22 million, while SoftBank, Fidelity and others continued to increase their investment in providing Alibaba.
made a huge strategic investment of US$82 million.
Cashing out allowed Goldman Sachs to obtain a return of about 7 times, but it was unable to match the US$58 billion that SoftBank, which had been following Alibaba, made when Alibaba went public in the United States.
Tencent Tencent: After running out of ammunition and food, it was rescued by IDG and "Superman Kai" In 1998, Ma Huateng, Zhang Zhidong, Zeng Liqing, Xu Chenye, and Chen Yidan pooled 500,000 to register and establish Tencent.
Although its market value now exceeds US$300 billion, in that Internet winter, Tencent, which had run out of ammunition and food, met its "angel".
In 1999, OICQ became an instant hit in colleges and universities and spread at an astonishing speed. This brought OIQC an exponential increase in the number of users, but also made Tencent, which could not find a profit model, bear the server hosting fees.
Near death.
Ma Huateng later said that he wanted to sell OIQC, but failed to sell it several times, so he had to find another strategy to seek financing.
In April 2000, IDG and Hong Kong PCCW founded by Li Zekai invested a total of US$2.2 million in Tencent, each holding 20% ??of Tencent's equity, and became Tencent's "angel investor".
It was this money that brought Tencent back to life after running out of ammunition and food, and laid the foundation for its rapid rise in the future. The original ups and downs and hardships have all turned into dust.