Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

If Li Yanhong kept raising the stakes, Cheng Weixing would have no choice but to keep fighting.

”Then speed up our expansion. We’ll use speed to overwhelm their slower pace. Don’t be afraid to lose money. Cheng Weixing is losing 1.2 billion a month and I haven’t said a thing, so what are you afraid of?”

A small smile played on Chen Yansen’s lips as he teased.

Pei Yi smiled knowingly and quickly nodded in agreement. Within the group, Fast Taxi’s valuation wasn’t even in the first tier, but its monthly marketing expenses were the highest.

Not even Orange Technology or Pinbei Mall could burn through money like that!

After hanging up, Chen Yansen paused in thought for a moment before calling in Wang Teng. He instructed him to contact Daniel Ek about integrating Spotify’s music data source into the Moss Smart Speaker, and to add music libraries from Penguin Music, Kugou, and Kuwo to the Alexa Smart Speaker.

There were Chinese people living abroad and foreigners living in China. Although this user segment was small, there was no reason to ignore it.

Besides, a considerable number of users in China enjoyed music from Europe and America. It was hard to say how many more Smart Speaker sales this move would generate, but doing something was better than doing nothing.

「Meanwhile.」

His peace talks rejected, Li Yanhong had spent the last few days searching for investors (or rather, suckers). As soon as DiDi Dache’s subsidies stopped, its average daily orders began to decline, having now fallen to 600,000 per day.

But Li Yanhong felt the risk was too high to invest alone.

Among the three BAT giants, Penguin and Ah Li had both sided with Fast Taxi.

Among state-owned institutions, Huake and Huaxin were putting both money and effort into backing Fast Taxi.

Among foreign firms, Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technology had chosen to side with Fast Taxi.

Very few opportunities remained for Qian Du Network. After a round of talks, only Ping’an and IDG Capital showed any interest in investing. But to Li Yanhong’s fury, the representatives from both companies refused to accept the 8 billion Hua Yuan valuation.

The most they would offer was a valuation of 6 billion!

In other words, the 1.2 billion from Qian Du Network’s Series E investment would shrink by a quarter in less than a month.

Of course, Li Yanhong refused!

The negotiations between the two sides reached a stalemate, with neither willing to back down.

Who would have thought that Junlian Capital, armed with a priority exit clause in their contract, would approach IDG Capital and sell its 8.1% stake in DiDi Dache for 500 million Hua Yuan, at a valuation just over 6 billion.

Zhu Nanli’s motives for investing in DiDi Dache had never been pure to begin with. After Liu Yiqing became the Managing Director of Goldman Sachs Asia, he immediately lost interest in the CEO position at DiDi Dache.

In one move, Junlian Capital made a hundred million and successfully cashed out.

Upon hearing this news, Li Yanhong nearly contacted Xiong Xiaoge of IDG Capital to sell Qian Du’s shares to him as well.

’At least Xiong Xiaoge’s offer is more sincere than Chen Yansen’s!’

But then he thought about Qian Du Network’s LBS division and its O2O strategic layout. With a long sigh, he forcibly suppressed the negative feelings welling up inside him.

’A single setback doesn’t mean anything. DiDi Dache hasn’t reached the point of surrender yet.’

’Qian Du Network doesn’t lack money!’

After weighing his options again and again, Li Yanhong decided to make an additional investment.

The next morning, under his strong push, Qian Du Network injected another 800 million in capital into DiDi Dache, keeping the valuation level with the Series E round.

This time, Li Yanhong didn’t dare provoke Cheng Weixing. He called in Xiang Hailong for a three- or four-hour chat. The core strategy was: don’t go head-to-head with Fast Taxi, reduce subsidies, and use the funds to improve product features and expand the scope of operations.

”Boss, I don’t want to clash with Cheng Weixing head-on either, but every time DiDi Dache’s business expands to a new city, Fast Taxi follows us the very next day, sticking to us like glue,” Xiang Hailong said with a bitter smile.

”Focus your efforts on the user experience for both passengers and drivers. Pause the promotional subsidies. We’ll talk again once DiDi Dache has accumulated a sufficient order volume and fulfillment capability,” Li Yanhong instructed ambiguously.

In short: reduce subsidies and expand the service area.