MTL - The Growth of the Richest Man-Chapter 126 fist company
It's not that Zhang Yong has never been involved in the game industry at all. More than a year ago, Renren Technology has launched the "Happy Farm" game, and through this game, it has attracted a lot of popularity for Renren and Xiannei. The number of active users of the two websites has not been long. , quickly exceeded 10 million people. And these popularity are also the basic force for the rapid development of Renren Technology's various businesses.
After more than a year of development, the number of registered users of Renrentong has exceeded 100 million, but these initial registered users are still the backbone for the development of Renren products.
But any online game has its life cycle. The game "Happy Farm" has now completed its infancy and growth period, and has entered the most powerful middle-aged period. However, although the popularity of middle-aged games is very high, it also has its inherent problem, that is, the new users of the game no longer flow in enough. Such a game without the influx of newcomers is destined to gradually approach its old age, and then gradually die out.
Therefore, Zhang Yong must plan ahead and introduce new game projects. Otherwise, if Renren does not have game projects in the future, the consequences will be unimaginable. In the previous life, after "Happy Farm" was discontinued, the popularity of Renren gradually faded. After the company went public in the United States, it has been on a long bear market journey.
What Zhang Yong wants to invest this time is an American game company called "Fist Company".
Riot Games may not be known to many people, but the game developed by Riot Games is known almost as long as the post-90s or even the post-00s-the name of this game is "League of Legends".
"League of Legends" (LOL for short) is a hero vs. MOBA competitive online game developed by American Riot Games (Games). There are hundreds of individual heroes in the game, and there are special development systems such as a ranking system and a rune system. "League of Legends" is also committed to promoting the development of global e-sports. In addition to linking various divisions to develop professional leagues and building an e-sports system, it will also hold three annual "Mid-Season Championships", "Global Finals" and "AllStar All-Star Games". The big world-class event has won the love of hundreds of millions of players and formed its own unique e-sports culture.
Riot Games was established in 2006. Up to now, "League of Legends" has been in development for more than 2 years. According to Zhang Yong's memory, this game is expected to be launched in a little more than half a year.
Zhang Yong specially asked someone to understand the current capital operation of Riot Games. In 2006, because of the bright future of MOBA competitive online games, several ambitious young gamers started a business together and raised funds to start the company's game company. These young people, working for themselves, designers and programmers, slowly started the development of the "League of Legends" game. Even some of their young people are very funny, and they added their names to the first heroes of "League of Legends" - for example, in "League of Legends", there is a hero named after Brandon Beck, the founder of Riot Games. : Rune Mage - Ryze.
But developing a game without money is still not enough. When writing a game, you can do whatever you want, but when the game is actually released to the public, the software and programs used when writing the game will be charged to them. Copyright fees, licensing fees, and even the channel fees for publishing games are very expensive. In addition, the United States has encountered a major financial crisis that has occurred once in decades. Therefore, in 2008, Riot Games At the time of the introduction of the A round of strategic financing.
Originally, the strategic financing this time should be led by Tencent, with a total financing of 8 million US dollars. However, because of Zhang Yong's birth, Tengxun is in China, and the Tengxun circle has been seized by everyone, and it is difficult for Tengxun to open up the market, so Tengxun at this time is completely domestic. Overwhelmed, I have no intention of participating in Riot’s A round of strategic financing, which was finally led by Benchmark Capital, and the investment amount was only a mere $3 million.
By the beginning of 2009, Riot had once again burned out its money and was ready to introduce Series B financing!
After several rounds of negotiations between Xu Lili of Yongchang Investment Company and the management of Riot Games, Yongchang Investment Company gave Riot Games a valuation of US$10 million. This valuation has already made Riot's management very excited, because two years ago, when they started the company, the total capital invested by several young people was only 300,000 US dollars, and even adding angels The $500,000 in round financing and $3 million in round A financing~www.novelbuddy.com~ Their total investment in the company is less than 4 million. They think that the valuation can reach 8 million, which is already very good. But what they didn't expect was that Yongchang Investment's offer was 25% higher than their estimate.
Since the price is negotiable, everything in the back is easy to say. Zhang Yong’s Yongchang Investment Company directly obtained a 50% stake in Riot Games with $10 million in Series B financing and became the largest shareholder of Riot Games.
Riot, the founder of Riot Games, feels that their founding team has achieved great success. Every dollar invested by the founding team at the time has now turned into more than ten dollars, which is only two years. That's it. What's more profitable than investing in this company these days? If it is stock speculation, according to the fall method of the US stock market in 2008, their founding teams are already penniless this year.
Moreover, the key point is that Zhang Yong's Yongchang Investment Company also agreed with them that their founder team, each person's equity voting rights, can have 1 vote equal to 5 votes, so although the founder team owns a small proportion of shares , but can still have a high say in company decisions. This in turn makes them feel very attached to Riot Games.
The reason why Zhang Yong did this, of course, was to prevent the group of founders of Riot from leaving after Tengxun acquired Riot in his previous life, which resulted in Tencent only acquiring a shell company with no one, and the company owed money to it. Huge debts - the year that Tengxun acquired Riot Games, due to various events, Riot Games brought Tengxun a net loss of 821 million yuan! Fortunately, the "League of Legends" owned by the fist company later became popular in the domestic market, otherwise Twisted Vine would cry to death.
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