Chapter 466： forever lost opportunity

Founded in 2007 by two former Amazon employees, Flipkart is India's largest e-commerce retailer.

Their original goal was to become India's "Ali Company".

But despite the rapid growth of the company, it still has strong competitors in the Indian e-commerce market, including New Delhi electronics market Snapdeal and fashion retailer Jabong, while Amazon and eBay have entered the Indian market not long ago.

Therefore, Flipkart is also facing a strong challenge from the founder's former owner.

After Amazon entered the Indian market, it challenged competitors such as Flipkart with measures such as low prices, second-day delivery, new product categories and strong promotion. For this reason, Flipkart also had to expand its business scope and seek more financing. and support to resist market competition.

At this time, Zoom company took action, and Zoom company, which was also preparing to enter the Indian market, selected Flipkart company after conducting a detailed investigation.

This time, because it is still busy building a complete e-commerce network in other regions, Zoom is not ready to go out in person. After all, the Indian market also has its own complexity and cannot completely copy the European and American models. China has learned a lesson.

Therefore, in the end, Zoom and Flipkart hit it off. After the negotiation, they invested 3 billion US dollars and got 60% of the shares of Flipkart, making it a member of Zoom and blocking Amazon in the Indian market.

It has to be said that e-commerce companies are indeed very expensive, especially in the self-operated and warehousing logistics construction model of Zoom, which is really impossible for ordinary companies to do.

Didn't Amazon continue to burn money for many years, and it has always been in a state of loss.

The fact is that so far, Zoom's more than 10 billion US dollars has not been able to last long in the rapid expansion of overseas markets.

But in the same way, its scale and market share are not the same as before.

If Amazon is currently the world's largest e-commerce company, Zoom is firmly in the second place, with only a dozen percentage points behind the other in terms of market share.

So now Rick Walton means that he is going to start Zoom's A round of financing from now on, and William Chen also agrees.

Yes, it's incredible that Zoom is now on the verge of reaching a $50 billion valuation -- which is also the pre-money valuation the duo set for Zoom's Series A round -- and now it's just a Series A round. financing.

This is entirely due to the two founders of Zoom, Rick Walton and Chen Ou "William, who are not bad money people and have strong funds. ""

In addition, it is the battle of investing in Groupon, which allows them to obtain a handsome return of over 10 billion, so most of the funds for medium-term expansion have been solved.

In Rick's plan, this time Zoom's financing will take out about 10% of the shares and raise $5.5 billion for later expansion in overseas markets.

In fact, these funds can be collected by William Chen and Rick Walton. Needless to say, William Chen, Rick and his wife Delphine, can also put together a dozen or two billion dollars. .

It's just that the purpose of Zoom's financing this time, in addition to the need for capital development, is to introduce more powerful investment institutions to prepare for the subsequent IPO.

It is expected that Zoom will start preparing for an IPO by next year.

Among the Internet giants, such as Amazon and Google, are listed when the market value is relatively low, but Facebook will conduct an IPO next month, and when it goes public, the market value will exceed 100 billion US dollars. .

William Chen remembers that last year, Walmart Group proposed to acquire Zoom. At that time, their offer was 30 billion US dollars, but it was rejected by Chen William. He believed that the value of Zoom company could reach 50 billion US dollars.

As a result, his statement at the time made it difficult for the other party to accept, but now, just financing, Zoom's valuation has exceeded 50 billion US dollars, if it is an acquisition, I am afraid it will be reported at this time 60 billion or even 70 billion US dollars The price, I will not consider it here.

After all, at this time, Amazon's market value has exceeded 100 billion US dollars, and Zoom has clearly been on the way to catch up and surpass Amazon.

It can also be said that the Walmart Group has forever lost the opportunity to acquire Zoom.

Even Rick Walton has changed his mind and never mentioned the merger with Walmart Group, but is independently developing Zoom's warehousing and logistics system and enriching its self-operated system.

After all, the Zoom shares he currently holds will be worth $20 billion, far exceeding the value of his holdings in Walmart Group. Zoom is now his most important business.

...

After swimming a few laps in the pool, William Chen went ashore to pick up the bath towel and wiped his body.

The London Olympics are not far away, only three months away, so he will also pay attention to keeping his body in good shape.

Cheng Biru, wearing a professional suit and stepping on high heels, walked to Chen William's side, and handed over to Chen William the box office situation of the first half of the year and the plans for the movie just handed over by 20th Century MGM Pictures.

When he looked at the report, Cheng Biru said:

"Mr. William, Ms. Oprah has once again sent you an invitation for a talk show, this time the show is cooperating with Netflix, so Mr. Hastings also hopes that you will accept it for the streaming platform's Talk shows attract audiences.”

This is not the first time Oprah has issued an invitation to William Chen. When William Chen first came to this world William Chen, who was just about to make a career at that time, accepted Oprah. At the invitation of Ms. Pula, she was on her talk show once.

That's when William Chen needed to eliminate the negative news left by his predecessor and re-change the public's perception of him.

I have to say that the effect of that interview was quite good, and many people have re-acquainted with a "reformed" William Chen since then.

After that, William Chen soared into the sky, and in a very short period of time, he became a typical example of America's "prodigal son" and "rehabilitation", and eventually became a very successful entrepreneur and investor.

Therefore, later, Oprah has sent out invitations to William Chen many times, hoping that he can participate in his own show again. After all, think about it and know that in his previous interview, compared with the current successful career, Definitely a hit that appeals to all audiences.

Especially recently, when William Chen divorced Ivanta and was about to have a wedding with Paris, whether it was his love life or his business achievements, there were too many things that made global audiences curious.

"Reject her first. Well, it's not a rejection. I don't want to appear in public before the wedding."

Chen William pondered for a moment and said to Cheng Biru.

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