"Quxin and Toutiao accept financing at the same time?" Zhang Xiaolong's face changed drastically. The two most core softwares under Toutiao were almost favored by everyone. If they accept financing, Zhou Yujie would definitely get a large amount of cash, and in this way, Teng Xun's advantage will be greatly reduced.

"When the two companies accept financing together, Zhou Yujie will definitely get a large amount of funds. I just don't know what he will use to do?" Ma Huateng sighed. It only took a year and a half for the headlines to go from a weak challenger to a large group that can compete with Teng Xun.

Nowadays, with capital and traffic, if there are any new ideas, it will be hard to predict whether Teng Xun is a rival.

......

The news that Quxin and Toutiao are preparing to accept financing is like a bomb falling into a pond, causing huge waves in the venture capital industry.

Countless domestic and foreign venture capital institutions have gathered in Shangshanghai, intending to get a share of the pie, but Zhou Yujie is not in a hurry. In addition to funding, this financing requires more resources. However, with Toutiao's current scale, the help that large overseas venture capital can provide is actually limited, and what is more needed is domestic political resources.

This time, there are also a large number of domestic investment funds that come to Shanghai, such as CITIC Capital, China Merchants Equity Investment, CITIC Capital, CICC Capital, Bank of Communications, etc.

It is a rare opportunity for these national capitals to gather together, and Zhou Yujie personally received this group of people.

"Toutiao's revenue in the first quarter was 60 million US dollars. Even if it is in a period of rapid growth, its revenue this year is at most US$300 million, and its profit is about US$60 million. According to normal data in the Internet industry, the valuation before financing should not exceed US$2 billion. Mr. Zhou, is your valuation of US$6 billion too high?"

Sun Shijie of China Investment Corporation squinted his eyes and looked at Zhou Yujie sitting in front of him. The others nodded in agreement with this view.

"Is the 100 times price-to-earnings ratio very high?" Zhou Yujie didn't care at all, but said with a smile: "Everyone, 12 years ago, Ma Huateng wanted to sell his company for 600,000 yuan, but no one agreed. What is the price-to-earnings ratio of Tengxun at that time?"

Wu Xiaodong of the Bank of Communications said: "Mr. Zhou, this is not the same. Socialization is a necessity for people's lives. Once a monopoly is formed, users cannot live without it. Today's Toutiao's current number of users is indeed very high, but it is not a necessity."

"Teng Xun, a monopoly, does not mean that she can rest assured." Zhou Yujie said with a smile: "Quxin's current number of users is close to 120 million. This financing is also to obtain enough funds to stabilize the social market. If you are interested, you can participate. If you are not interested, then I can only introduce other venture capitalists."

Wu Xiaodong and others looked at each other but didn't say anything. After a while, Sun Shijie said: "Mr. Zhou, we have not decided on Quxin's investment yet. Today we should discuss Toutiao's financing plan, right?"

Although Quxin's data is good, many venture capital investors are willing to participate in the investment, but they do not include them. The state-owned assets background missed the first batch of Internet giants such as BAT 10 years ago, and regretted it. They subsequently established their own venture capital companies. However, in terms of investment, state-owned venture capital generally does not participate in angel round investment, but likes to participate in some formed companies and assist with their own background. This profit is not the highest, but the risk is much lower.

But Quxin is different. Although it has already reached a large scale, it is following the route of the giant Teng Xun. It is a life-and-death enemy with Teng Xun, whose market value is as high as tens of billions of dollars. It is still too risky to invest in such a company.

Relatively speaking, it is much safer to invest in Toutiao. After all, Tengxun, NetEase, and Sina have been chasing the news APP field for a long time, but they are still left behind by Toutiao. In addition, Toutiao is now starting to focus on the PC side, so no one is optimistic that Toutiao will become the future overlord of the news field.

"Okay." Zhou Yujie nodded and said: "In fact, Sequoia Capital, DST, IDG, Atlantic Capital and Baidu are willing to accept it, but I still hope to reach this cooperation with you, because Toutiao's main market is in China, and I hope to reach long-term cooperation with domestic venture capital funds.

But cooperation is mutual, Toutiao is not short of funds. The purpose of this financing is also to be able to build and progress with us, and to provide certain help to partners when Toutiao needs it.

Several people meet this requirement very well, but if there is no consensus on valuation, it would be a pity."

Wu Xiaodong frowned. Zhou Yujie's meaning was already very obvious. If he did not agree to the price, there would be no need to negotiate subsequent financing. This was the first time in their experience that he had encountered such a tough negotiating partner.

But thinking about the current achievements of Toutiao's major businesses, it also has strong capital. In the history of Internet companies' financing, there are only a few Google and Facebook companies that have not even had the three domestic BAT giants.

Sun Shijie thought for a while and asked, "Mr. Zhou, don't know what aspects do you need us to help the development of Toutiao?"

Any large Internet company with a certain scale will have a secondary role when raising funds. What is more important is resources in a certain field, such as traffic, political resources, overseas resources, etc.

Zhou Yujie said: "There are several requirements. The first one is that I hope you can convince the country's administrative departments, especially the central government, to open a government headline account on Toutiao."

"Government Headline Account?" Although Sun Shijie and others had never heard of this word, they could understand the literal meaning at once.

Wu Xiaodong said: "All government departments have opened accounts on Weibo. It may be difficult for them to transfer to today's headlines."

Zhou Yujie smiled and said, "It's not that they are asking them to give up their Weibo account, but that they are promoting government affairs in two places at the same time. Today's Toutiao's users will soon exceed 100 million, and there are also many users who do not use Weibo. Every time the government discloses government affairs, it can't be targeted only on Weibo users, right?"
Chapter completed!