Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Jingdong, which was constantly vowing to pull Ah Li from its throne as the industry’s number one, was Ali Baba’s true enemy.

Even though Pinbei seemed to be the bigger threat.

”You agreed?” Ma Liyun asked, almost instinctively.

He hadn’t expected Chen Yansen to agree so readily. He thought he would have to offer something in return to seal the deal.

”Ah Li is an important partner of Senlian Capital. It wouldn’t make sense for Shunfeng, Tiantian, and Guotong to get the patent license, only for us to refuse Ah Li, would it?”

Chen Yansen said with a light, teasing laugh from the sofa in his office.

After hearing this, much of Ma Liyun’s anger instantly subsided. A faint smile touched his lips. ”Kuai Pao has invested heavily in the group-buy and food delivery sectors. When are you starting the Series B funding round?”

The implication was clear: in the local lifestyle services sector, Ah Li was still a firm supporter of Senlian Capital.

”Let’s talk after the Internet Conference,” Chen Yansen said offhandedly, pushing the timeline back a bit.

Kuai Pao’s Series A funding round had raised a total of 180 million US dollars from several firms, including Ah Li, Penguin, Jinsha Venture Capital, and Gao Ling Capital.

Less than 10% of that had been spent competing with Eleme.

Expanding into the North China, East China, and Central China markets over the last three months hadn’t consumed much either. The remaining funds were more than enough to support Pei Yi in completing the expansion into the Southern China and Northeast markets.

Besides, Qian Du and Meituan Takeout had yet to expand beyond Yanjing, while Kuai Pao’s operations in other regions were already profitable, contributing around two million in net profit daily.

Therefore, Chen Yansen wasn’t the least bit worried about Kuai Pao’s finances.

”Sounds good. I’ll see you in Yanjing, then,” Ma Liyun said with a smile.

Chen Yansen exchanged a few more pleasantries, then asked with feigned concern about the progress of the Cainiao Logistics project.

Ma Liyun’s expression darkened, but he didn’t avoid the question. Instead, he answered vaguely that the funding, sites, and partners were all still under negotiation.

Chen Yansen thought to himself, ’You’re so slow, you’ll be eating my dust.’

’The Cloud Speed Express Alliance was founded first, and Cainiao Logistics will be founded later. People will just call Cainiao a copycat.’

Ten minutes later, Chen Yansen hung up the phone.

’Since Lao Ma hadn’t chosen to burn all his bridges, he certainly wasn’t going to be the one to flip the table.’

’Backing Ah Li into a corner would do him no good.’

’Kuai Pao and Fast Taxi might not be short on cash for now, but we need to continue fundraising. By the end of the year at the latest.’

Chen Yansen’s eyes narrowed slightly as he mulled it over.

’Whether it was Penguin, Ah Li, DST, or Huake, Huaxin, and Investment Attraction, he had to use equity to bind them closer.’

’Only when their sunk costs were high enough would investors like Penguin and Ah Li not dare to abandon Kuai Pao and Fast Taxi so easily.’

For the next few days, Chen Yansen spent all his time with Wang Teng and the team, methodically advancing the development of Aurora Future OS. The underlying architecture design was complete; the remaining work on the compatibility solution, graphics rendering engine, and security framework could be handed off to the R&D department.

On September 10, the Kuai Pao app updated to version 2.0, adding a scanning feature and a group-buy code function.

The way vouchers were redeemed in the group-buy industry was turned on its head in an instant.

After trying it out, merchants and users immediately discovered the convenience of the group-buy codes.

Driven by the group-buy codes, Kuai Pao’s group-buy business grew at an incredible rate, rapidly closing in on Lashou Network’s market share.