Manhattan, New York, USA.

Outside there is heavy snow and temperatures drop to the lowest level of the year.

Ren Pingsheng and Jiang Qiurong sat together in the conference room of ICG Capital's US headquarters, facing the negotiation team sent by ICG Capital.

In the opposing camp, the leader is Luo Dahui, chairman and president of ICG Capital (China).

Luo Dahui, in his early 50s this year, wears a pair of round-framed glasses, has good facial features, is of medium stature, and has a lovely smile.

Originally from Xiangchu Province, he took a scholarship to study in the United States at the age of 25, and after graduating from Boston University, he joined Wall Street, where he is currently the head of the Asian business of ICG, a well-known venture capital firm.

ICG Capital is one of the first overseas venture capital companies to enter China, and has extensive and rich investment achievements and experience in China, including Tengxun, Baidu, Sohu and other large domestic Internet companies, all of which have received investment from ICG Capital.

Moreover, unlike other overseas venture capital, ICG Capital is a well-localized international venture capital firm, the company's partners and management are mainly Chinese, the company has rich corporate, financial and legal resources in China, and can provide guidance and support for enterprises to list overseas.

For the latter, it is what Ren Pingsheng values the most.

He was originally conservative about the capitalization of Wanyou Network, and only thought about building a cash cow of his own, and did not want to share the equity with others too early, but a conversation with Jiang Qiurong overturned this idea.

In 2007, China's Internet has entered the midfield stage, and capital plays a crucial role in the development of enterprises.

Even if Wanyou Network can grow into an excellent cash cow, the online game business alone cannot support Ren Pingsheng's "five-year plan".

Sole proprietorship enterprises have many restrictions on credit and financing, and without the support of the capital market, Ren Pingsheng can only make small troubles and cannot become a big climate.

Moreover, there is a real problem at hand.

Ren Pingsheng knows that in another year, the largest financial crisis at the beginning of the 21st century will be ushered in, which will cause heavy damage to the global financial market, and it will not be able to recover to the original level in three years.

If Wanyou Network is delayed to be listed far later, not only will the company's overall valuation be greatly affected, but it will also be detrimental to Ren Pingsheng's financing from the capital market.

Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, Ren Pingsheng believes that he should land in the capital market as soon as possible, grasp the last hurdle before the financial crisis, first do a good job in the listing of Wanyou Network, and then talk about the financial resources.

After that, you can easily take the money from the capital market and easily harvest those Internet giants that are still in their infancy.

The first step, of course, starts with the introduction of strong VCs.

This is the first time that Universal Network has received external capital investment, which is commonly referred to in the industry as First Round Financing.

The first round of investment is very important for start-ups.

Not only can it bring a lot of money to start-ups, but the valuation level of the first round of investment will greatly affect the size of the start-up's subsequent rounds of funding, and even determine its future development trend.

Not only that, the venture capital companies introduced in the first round of investment will also play a vital role in the development of the enterprise.

The most prominent example is Jingxi, when Liu Qiangxi was looking for the first round of investment, he only dared to ask for 2 million US dollars, and he was satisfied just to maintain the capital chain.

However, venture capital firm Tomorrow Capital directly gave Jingxi $10 million to guide Liu Qiangxi to expand the product category and invest in self-built logistics, and then repeatedly followed the investment until it was sent to the NASDAQ for listing.

The first round of investment is like a woman's first marriage, the in-laws who marry are good, and they will live well in the future.

Ren Pingsheng spent a lot of effort when choosing the first family to marry his mother-in-law.

The internal beta test of Wanyou Network was very successful, not only setting off a small storm in the game industry, but also attracting the attention of many venture capitalists.

Venture capitalists want to seize potential start-ups, and there have been successful examples such as Shengda and Seven Cheng in the field of online games before.

Before negotiating with ICG Capital, Ren Pingsheng had received several batches of venture capital research, and the reason why he preferred ICG Capital was that in addition to Jiang Qiurong's thread, it was mainly because ICG Capital was a fund that mainly invested in US dollars.

It is very important to accept the investment, whether it is in US dollars or RMB, which is directly related to the future listing path of Wanyou Network.

Due to capital control and many other reasons, the first batch of venture capital institutions to enter the country are US dollar funds, they have sufficient experience, mature development, longer duration, more patience for the start-ups they invest in, and can often invest in multiple "unicorns".

Most of these U.S. dollar funds are primarily exiting by helping start-ups IPO in the U.S. capital markets.

The main investors and managers of RMB funds are all in China, and after start-ups accept RMB investment, their legal organization is still a domestic limited company, and the main listing target in the future can only be the domestic A-share market or the Hong Kong stock market.

Ren Pingsheng is very familiar with the rules of the domestic A-share market, which not only requires the company to exist for more than three years, but also maintains a net profit of more than 30 million yuan in the past three years, and the cumulative operating income is more than 300 million yuan to meet the listing qualifications.

You can't be listed just if you meet the qualifications, the review system is implemented in China, and companies with listing qualifications must be approved by the approval department before they can be listed.

Regardless of the various off-market moves and artificial factors in the legendary approval process, even if Wanyou Network completes the A-share process in a dignified manner, it will be three years later, and even if the listing is successful, it will not be of much significance.

Ren Pingsheng wants to go public in the window period before 2008, and the only way to go public in the United States is to go.

If you want to go public in the United States, you have to invest in a dollar fund.

Although Ren Pingsheng had a clear direction of financing in his heart, he did not reveal anything during the negotiation process.

From the beginning to the end, he maintained a highly confident posture in negotiating with venture capital, and was very tight on the amount of financing and valuation, and he resolutely rejected too low corporate valuations and excessive post-investment management requirements.

At the beginning, more than half of the dozen venture capitalists were rejected because of the US dollar funds, and among the US dollar funds, several withdrew because of the valuation gap, and finally only two venture capitalists were left to talk.

It just so happens that these two are the largest and oldest US dollar funds in China, one is ICG Capital, and the other is Red Shirt Capital.

The main reason why Red Shirt Capital did not talk about the end is in post-investment management.

During the negotiations, the Red Shirt demanded that half of the senior executives be sent to Wanyou after the investment, and that in addition to the position of general manager, finance and operations should be replaced by red shirts, citing the fact that the management of Wanyou Network is too young, inexperienced and not well recognized by the market.

As soon as the red shirt's plan was proposed, Ren Pingsheng knew that this investment could not be discussed.

Although Ren Pingsheng's current shell is young, the soul in the shell is not a little white sheep who has never seen the wind and waves, like this example of venture capital interfering with start-ups and setting up the founder or even kicking it out, he has seen many examples in his previous life.

For example, Wang Zhidong, the founder of Xinlan, Zhang Lan, the founder of Qiaojiangnan, and Niu Hesheng, the founder of Mengniu, these examples of blood and tears abound.

The company that I have worked so hard to build is now giving up to the red shirt to toss, what are you kidding?

Ren Pingsheng is not stupid, Wanyou Network is his hard work, and only he can lead Wanyou to develop and grow, and no one else can do it.

After the red shirt was out, ICG became Ren Pingsheng's only choice at present.

Regarding the post-investment management issue that Ren Pingsheng is most concerned about, Luo Dahui said this:

"The relationship between venture capital and start-ups is actually similar to that of husband and wife, although they are a community of interests in paper, they each have their own private interests in private. ”

"On the one hand, the venture capital is afraid that the start-up will take his money and squander it at will and mess up the company, and on the other hand, the start-up is also afraid that the venture capital will be unreliable and affect its own development. ”

"It's normal for both sides to work together on the surface, but secretly they are on guard against each other. ”

"However, venture capital interferes too much in the management of start-ups, and even goes out to direct the company themselves, which is actually not conducive to the development of start-ups in many cases. ”

"The success of 90% of start-ups depends mainly on the quality and ability of the founders, and if we don't trust the founders, we will definitely not invest in the company. ”

"So, you don't have to worry, ICG Capital's principle is to find companies with listing potential, invest and help them grow and go public, and then exit and get profits. ”

"Not interfering in the management of start-ups and helping them take off is a principle that we have adhered to for decades. ”

It was Luo Dahui's words that made Ren Pingsheng make up his mind to fly to New York, USA, to conduct final negotiations with ICG Capital.

Although the two parties have reached an agreement on the development of the enterprise, further negotiations are needed on the valuation amount.

This is related to how much shares Ren Pingsheng needs to give up, how much money he can get, and how much income ICG Capital will get in the future.

This negotiation is very important, but there are not many people around Ren Pingsheng who can help with this kind of help, fortunately, Jiang Qiurong is currently in the United States, so Ren Pingsheng can only pull her in and be his assistant.

Jiang Qiurong is proficient in English, she has a good understanding of corporate finance and corporate law, coupled with her long-term work in bank management and familiarity with various business negotiation skills, with her wings, Ren Pingsheng's negotiations with ICG Capital are progressing quickly.

After several rounds of negotiations, the two sides formally signed the first round of investment agreement in New York.

ICG Capital invested US$10 million in Wanyou Network, acquiring a 20% stake in Wanyou Network, which was valued at US$50 million.

The parties agreed that without Ren Pingsheng's consent, ICG Capital shall not send any management personnel to Wanyou Network, and that ICG Capital may provide management consulting advice to Wanyou Network if Ren Pingsheng himself needs it, and ICG Capital will provide intellectual resources to assist Wanyou Network in going public in the United States.

This investment agreement can be said to meet Ren Pingsheng's main demand, he not only raised money, but also firmly held the management of the company in his hands.

Of course, ICG Capital's money was not given for nothing, and Ren Pingsheng would soon prove to them that the investment was worth it.