Chapter 411 Ambition
Chapter 411 Ambition
In fact, after learning about Robert's identity, An Rusong had already guessed the other party's intention. Just as the American himself said, "NGN companies that own NGN software should naturally be the target of venture capital companies." BlackRock also has venture capital business, so NGN companies are naturally the target of BlackRock's favor.
Over the past period of time, at least a dozen venture capital institutions have established connections with An Rushong through various channels. Among them are some unknown small and medium-sized venture capital institutions, as well as some giant venture capital institutions that are well-known in the financial circle.
These venture capital institutions were optimistic about NGN and wanted to lend their own money to An Rusong to develop his company and expand NGN's business. Of course, the so-called "borrowing" here was not without conditions, it was nothing more than exchanging investment for NGN's shares. Furthermore, these venture capital institutions were not simply in a hurry to help others, they smelled an opportunity to make money from NGN.
As one of BlackRock's independent directors, Robert definitely represents the entire BlackRock. His purpose of meeting with An Rusong is naturally to get the opportunity to invest in NGN.
An Rushong knew this very well, so he would never be confused by Robert's praise of him and NGN.
"Of course, Mr. Robert, I understand what you mean," after listening carefully to what the other party said, An Rushong reached out and took a pack of cigarettes on the coffee table in front of him. After taking out one, he gestured towards Robert, meaning to ask if the other party minded him smoking.
Robert shook his head at first, then gestured for him to please help himself.
"In fact, I just discussed this issue with Steve Jobs of Apple some time ago," An Rusong said as he lit up a cigarette. "He also suggested that I start the B round of financing for NGN as soon as possible. And my answer to him at that time was that I would not consider the B round of financing before October this year."
After taking a puff of cigarette, he met Robert's curious gaze and continued, "As far as NGN's current financial situation is concerned, the funds obtained in the last round of financing have not been fully consumed. The most important thing is that NGN currently has only one major task in terms of hardware layout, which is the construction of a data center. As for the issue of software localization, the amount of funds required is not large, and NGN can still afford it at present."
"In addition," An Rusong said, "In the next few months, I would like to focus my main energy on further improving the company structure. After all, as the software localization layout is launched, we will need to introduce more talents. Otherwise, the operation of the entire company will be in trouble."
"Of course, Chairman An, your caution is justified," Robert said with a smile, "Besides, before coming to Korea, I also made a thorough understanding of your company's plans. I know that your company is building a medium-sized data center and plans to transfer the user data of the NGN software to this data center after it is completed."
He paused for two or three seconds before continuing, "In addition, your company has apparently reached a cooperation agreement with the NSA. Of course, these are secondary. After all, as far as I know, in today's America, almost every Internet company has reached a cooperation agreement with the NSA."
When the other party mentioned NSA, An Rushong still kept a smile on his face. He didn't know whether this American was threatening him implicitly by mentioning this matter in front of him. However, no matter what the other party's purpose was, he was not worried at all. At least, he was not worried that the other party would leak the news. After all, it would not do BlackRock any good. It could even be said that if the other party leaked the news, the NSA would inevitably cause trouble for BlackRock.
Yes, in An Rusong's previous life, BlackRock was indeed a giant in the financial world, and its capital strength was strong enough to daunt people. But even so, this group company cannot be said to be reckless in its actions, otherwise, organizations like the NSA could still cause trouble for it.
"I mean, it's obvious that a medium-sized, no, it can't even be called a medium-sized data center," Robert said without saying anything more about the cooperation between NGN and NSA. "The data support it can provide is completely unable to meet the current development of NGN software. I even doubt whether it can handle relevant user information in South Korea."
At this point, Robert's intention was obvious. He came to negotiate with An Rusong on behalf of BlackRock Group. BlackRock hoped to become an investor in NGN. At the same time, BlackRock also gave An Rusong a suggestion, that is, after completing the B round of financing, he should quickly build a large, even giant data center for the development of NGN software.
"In the past month, although the growth of NGN software users has slowed down, its growth rate is still amazing," Robert picked up the wine glass in front of him again, took a sip of wine, moistened his throat, and continued, "As an investor, I think that before October this year, the server hardware that can provide data support for NGN software will limit the continued development of NGN software. If Mr. An waits until October to consider raising a round B financing, and then uses the funds from the round B financing to build a large or even giant data center for NGN itself, then the lack of data centers will become the biggest bottleneck restricting the development of NGN software in the next six to ten months."
An Rusong did not speak, but psychologically, he agreed with what Robert said. In fact, even if Robert had not appeared, he would have realized this problem a long time ago. Nowadays, the number of registered users of NGN software is increasing, and the software itself has more and more functions. Whether it is the increasing number of registered users, the data generated by users during the chat process, or even some games and functions integrated into the software, they all require more and more powerful analysis and storage capabilities of the data center.
So, from this point of view, Robert was not exaggerating. The data center that An Rusong was building in Seoul was not capable of supporting the operation of NGN software for another six to ten months. In An Rusong's original plan, the data center in Seoul was not intended to provide services to global users of NGN software.
In An Rusong's plan, the data center in Seoul is used to store and run data related to South Korea, while the user data outside of South Korea will be handled by the data center built by NGN overseas. As for this overseas data center, An Rusong plans to set it up in Iceland, Greenland, or somewhere in Sweden, because these places have lower temperatures all year round, which is conducive to saving the cost of data center operation.
As for why An Rushong did not consider bringing forward the construction project of the large data center, the reason is very simple: he did not have that much money.
To build a large, or even giant data center, the capital investment is not comparable to the data center currently being built by NGN. It costs more than one billion US dollars, or more than two billion US dollars. In short, it is not a small amount of money.
Take the "Henrico" data center built by Facebook in Virginia, USA. Its first phase project includes a data center with an investment of US$7.5 million and a solar energy project with an investment of US$2.5 million. However, with NGN's current financial resources, it is still unable to support such a large project.
If NGN Company launches a B round of financing, it should be no problem to raise one billion US dollars, but can An Rusong invest all this money in the construction of data centers? If so, what about the subsequent development of NGN Company? What about the investment needed in other areas?
Therefore, An Rushong did not fail to foresee the problem mentioned by Robert, he just was powerless to do anything about it.
The reality is that when Facebook or Google built their first large-scale data center, they did not push for it at the time of financing. Instead, they started to promote the corresponding projects after the company was actually listed.
Therefore, in An Rushong's conception, NGN's large data center should be built after the company is officially listed, and investors' money should be used to invest in this type of large project.
"Mr. Robert," after a brief silence, An Rusong took the only ashtray on the coffee table, flicked the ash on it, and said, "To be honest, in my development plan for NGN, even if the B round of financing is successfully completed and the total investment is more than 1.5 billion US dollars, I will not start a large-scale data center construction project at this stage."
Facing the other person's gaze, he continued, "I will use the funds raised in the B round of financing to promote the layout of NGN on the mobile side. At the same time, I will further expand the work of software localization. To be honest, in my plan, NGN software must achieve software localization functions in at least 52 major countries including Asia, North America, South America, Africa and Europe."
"In addition, between October this year and the end of next year, NGN software will undergo at least five major version updates, all of which require sufficient funding."
After hearing what An Rushong said, Robert was silent for a long time.
Before coming to Korea, he and the people in BlackRock who were interested in NGN had done in-depth research on An Rusong and his NGN company. They evaluated the value of NGN and predicted its future, but to be honest, they could not fully guess An Rusong's thoughts, such as An Rusong's ambitions and his optimism about mobile terminals.
(End of this chapter)