Chapter 410 Optimistic

Chapter 410 Optimistic

Chapter 410 Optimistic
"Haha," Robert's humorous words made An Rushong laugh. Invisibly, the strange feeling of estrangement between the two people when they first met also faded a lot. It was obvious that Mr. Robert was a sociable person. He knew how to use the simplest method to build closer relationships with strangers.

"I understand, Mr. Robert. This is the case all over the world, not just in your America. The same is true in my Republic of Korea. Yes, this is democracy," An Rusong said after laughing, spreading his hands. "It's just that I'm not a major donor to the Grand National Party yet, although I'm working towards that direction."

Robert nodded and said, "Then, relatively speaking, the situation of our BlackRock in the United States is better than your NGN. However, from the perspective of development prospects, your NGN is brighter than our BlackRock."

At this point, he paused and then added: "Of course, we are engaged in the financial industry, which is different from your NGN, so there are many issues that cannot be generalized."

"I can understand this as well. After all," An Rusong gestured, and said, "The current situation is a cold winter for the global financial industry. Well, a cold winter that may be very long."

He was not wrong. After all, a large part of BlackRock's business was mortgage loans, and Merrill Lynch, which had merged with BlackRock before, also had a large business in this area. Therefore, BlackRock was hit hard in the intensifying subprime mortgage crisis, but compared with the BlackRock of the future, which managed tens of trillions of dollars, the current BlackRock was too weak. With a fund management volume of less than 400 billion US dollars, it was too inconspicuous in front of the big conglomerates that also had problems. Therefore, not many people paid attention to it.

In addition, BlackRock Group is mainly an asset management company, and its founder Larry Fink has always adhered to the business philosophy of sharing the group's equity ratio. Therefore, although he is the leader of BlackRock Group, at present, the amount of assets he personally owns may not be much higher than that of An Rusong.

In fact, in terms of management style and philosophy, An Rusong still admires Larry. At least he is not greedy and can share wealth with his subordinates. Just like now, the more than a dozen independent directors in the leadership of BlackRock Group are all billionaires, and Larry Fink's personal assets are not much more than these independent directors.

Moreover, as an asset management company that has only been established for more than 20 years and has experienced various turmoil during this period, BlackRock Group has now become one of the main funders of the Democratic Party. This fully demonstrates that Larry Fink is good at spending money and he is willing to spend money.

"This is indeed a cold winter, and everyone of us can feel it," Robert continued, "and precisely because this is a cold winter that no one can escape, everyone is trying to find ways to survive."

"Does this have anything to do with me, Mr. Robert?" An Rushong picked up the wine glass in front of him, gestured to the other party, and said.

"Well, I should say there is no direct connection, but there is an indirect connection," Robert picked up his glass, took a sip of wine, and said, "In fact, we have always been paying attention to your NGN company and the development of NGN software."

An Rusong put down his wine glass, folded his hands in front of his lower abdomen, and smiled: "It is absolutely my honor to receive the attention of your company."

Robert smiled and continued, "In fact, we are not the only ones who are concerned about NGN software and NGN companies. There are people on Wall Street, or more precisely, in the entire financial world, who share the same concerns. After all, everyone can see how dynamic and promising NGN software is. We even think that the future of NGN software is brighter than Facebook. After all, NGN is an instant messaging software. Once it appears on a user's computer, it will soon take root. The social circle built by NGN software will make its users addicted and dependent. The more times users use it, the more dependent they will be on it."

After a pause, he continued: "From a product-specific perspective, NGN software is more likely to accumulate a loyal user base, which also ensures the sustainability of NGN companies' operations and profit models."

At this point, he spread his hands and smiled, "So, you see, NGN companies that own NGN software are naturally the targets favored by venture capital companies, right?"

An Rushong naturally understood what Robert meant.

Summarizing according to the growth laws of modern enterprises, the process of financing and investment for a startup often needs to go through the angel round, A round, B round, C round and even D round.

Angel round is easy to understand. At this stage, the company is just starting out, sometimes even just a concept. Investors often have to take great risks when investing in such projects. Of course, most startups cannot get much money from the investment introduced at this stage. However, during the A round of financing, the startup already has a very mature product and has undergone preliminary market verification. Its market appeal and commercial value have been preliminarily proven. Therefore, investors have to invest more money at this time to help the startup quickly occupy the market.

Judging from the characteristics of these two rounds of financing, NGN Company and its NGN software skipped the angel round of financing at the beginning. This is not because An Rusong himself has strong financial resources to support the company's early development funding needs. Instead, it is because the development of NGN software is very fast. After it was initially launched on the market, it was quickly and effectively promoted.

The most important thing is that South Korea has almost no market share in the instant messaging software market. MSN's complacency and unfriendly usage environment caused it to be defeated in one blow when facing NGN, which allowed NGN to have a huge number of basic users in a very short period of time.

Generally speaking, when a startup is raising its Series A funding, its founders are also forced to sell the most company shares. After all, during this period, the value of the company's products has not yet been proven, and rhetoric cannot paint a convincing blueprint. Therefore, in order to get investment from investors, in addition to making a good vision, they must also take out real shares.

By the same token, if a startup sells too many shares during its angel round of financing, then it will certainly have a harder time raising funds later, because the company’s founders must consider using as little equity as possible in exchange for more financing, and the negotiation process will be relatively difficult.

As for NGN, the first round of financing initiated by An Rusong was actually the A round of financing. After obtaining financing from Apple and Defeng Jurvetson, he was still the absolute majority shareholder of NGN, which enabled him to have more initiative in the subsequent financing process.

From another perspective, although An Rushong is still the largest shareholder of NGN Company, he will still have absolute initiative in the subsequent financing process. But the more so, the potential investors who are paying attention to the development of NGN Company will be more optimistic about the development of NGN Company and hope to participate in NGN Company's Series B financing.

In addition, in his words, Robert also hinted at another issue for An Rushong, which is that the current NGN company has the conditions to carry out the B round of financing.

The financing and investment circle has its own rules. For a start-up company, it is not up to it to decide when to raise funds. No one can say that the company is short of money for development, so it can go out to raise money, and then go out to raise money again when it is out of money. That is not called financing, that is called cutting leeks, and the leeks cut are the investors.

Specifically, investors will determine which round of financing a startup wants to raise based on the company's development situation. Generally speaking, if a startup wants to raise a Series B financing, its products must at least occupy a certain market share and have a certain basic user base. At the same time, the company's business model has also been verified by the market, and investors believe that the company has certain prospects and its development is sustainable.

Only when all these conditions are met will investors feel that investing in this company has relatively low risk and that the investment can be rewarded.

Based on these conditions, let's compare the development of NGN companies: First, today's NGN software has over 100 million users worldwide.

Secondly, after receiving the A round of financing, NGN companies have developed rapidly. Whether in terms of software localization, the development of new NGN software functions, or user loyalty, NGN companies have performed very well in the past few months. DFJ and Apple, which were the first to "take the lead", have already tasted enough sweetness and have obtained rich returns from their investment in NGN companies.

Finally, NGN Software has even proven its profitability through the seemingly insignificant small project called “NGN Farm”. It has been able to generate revenue for itself. Even if this profitability does not seem to be sustainable, it is already a huge surprise for potential investors.

With these three conditions already met, it is clear that today's NGN companies are qualified to launch a round B financing. Many investors believe that as long as NGN companies can obtain sufficient financing, their development will enter a more exciting fast lane.

This is also the underlying meaning of Robert's words.

(End of this chapter)