Chapter 110 GC Fund
At night, in the inner street of Itaewon, Stars & Stripes Bar.
With a brown coat draped in his arms, An Rusong walked briskly across the street and walked to the sidewalk outside the main entrance of the bar.
Mike, who arrived first, was getting together with a burly, bearded foreigner, talking about something, and did not notice An Rusong coming from behind.
"Hey, Mike," An Rusong walked closer and did not interrupt the conversation between the two. He waited until the conversation between the two came to an end. The bearded foreigner looked at him in surprise. Only then did he smile and say hello.
"Hey, Ann," Mike turned around and saw a smile on his face. Then, while saying hello, he came over and hugged An Rusong.
“Come, let me introduce you,” after the hug, he put his arm around An Rusong’s shoulders and said to the bearded foreigner, “Macaulay, Macaulay O’Leary, GC Fund My boss, An Rusong, is also your concern. He is the president of NGN Company” Macaulay, is very interested in his NGN company.
When introducing Macaulay, Mike used the abbreviation "GC Fund". To be honest, this fund is not very famous in South Korea, but An Rusong knows about it.
The so-called "GC Fund" is actually the "GrowthCatalyst Venture Capital Fund". This fund itself is not well-known, and probably not many people have heard of it, but its parent company, its parent company, is very famous - DFJ.
In recent times, as NGN companies have invested heavily in advertising, the number of registered users of NGN software has grown rapidly. Three days ago, NGN software made a major version update. Personal space, file sharing, mailbox and other services were added to the software. Subsequently, its number of registered users officially exceeded one million.
For an Internet company, the product it sells is software, and to measure whether a software has prospects and whether it is worth investing in depends on its number of users.
A million-level application may not be considered very outstanding in the Chinese market. After all, the base of Chinese Internet users is too large. But in South Korea, which has a total population of only 40 to 50 million, millions of applications are already considered very successful.
The most important thing is that NGN users are not only concentrated in South Korea. Its Japanese version is also popular in Japan. However, because the company’s advertising push does not cover Japan, its number of users in Japan is It's just a slow rise.
Although there are many similar instant messaging software in today's world, many people are not very optimistic about the prospects of NGN. However, in the face of the significant upward trend it has created, there are still venture capital investments. The agency extended an olive branch.
In the past two days, An Rusong received a lot of calls, and some venture capital institutions contacted him directly. However, the prices offered by these institutions were simply impossible for An Rusong to accept. To put it bluntly, venture capital institutions The valuation of NGN does not meet An Rusong's psychological expectations.
Now, he still has some money in his hand and is not so hungry for funds, so he can be reserved for a while longer. The most important thing is that NGN will have another minor version update in the next two weeks. In this round of minor version updates, NGN will add a brand new and original personal space application. An Rusong believes , the emergence of this application will not only bring a large number of new registered users to NGN, but will also enhance the user stickiness of the software itself.
At that time, I believe that the valuation of NGN by venture capital institutions will have a brand new price.
Although he did not think that Mr. Macaulay could offer a reasonable price to his company, the other party was introduced by Mike after all, so An Rusong still had to show a warm attitude. .
"Hello, Mr. Macaulay," An Rusong said with a smile as he reached out to the other party.
"Just call me Macaulay," Macaulay shook hands with him and smiled, "Mike and I are friends, we are friends, aren't we? Ann."
"Yes, everyone is We're friends," An Rusong chuckled and nodded in agreement.
“Let’s go in and have a couple of drinks,” Mike said, holding each other’s shoulders with one arm and the other, “If you have anything to say, we can talk over a drink.” As usual, Stars & Stripes Bar’s There was another long queue outside the door. Of course, the people queuing up were all young and beautiful girls wearing heavy makeup. After all, this bar was not open to Korean men. What's interesting is that in Itaewon these days, the more bars like this, the more they attract a large number of Korean women to patronize, as if Korean women also look down on Korean men.
From this point of view, in the world where An Rusong once lived, the high degree of antagonism between Korean men and women does not seem to be something difficult to understand. Of course, it is obviously understandable for Korean women to look down on men from their own country. After all, if his backbone is broken, what else can he expect?
However, after the last conflict, An Rusong now has free access to Stars & Stripes Bar. Although the security guard guarding the entrance of the bar is no longer the burly black man before, but the new one is The security guard still had no intention of stopping him.
So, under the surprised gazes of a row of pretty girls, An Rusong, Mike and Macaulay entered the bar talking and laughing.
Unlike the previous time when we came here, this time the three people did not go to the front of the bar. They sat down in front of a booth away from the bar. An Rusong took the initiative to invite the waiter and asked Mike and Macaulay to order drinks. He also ordered a few dried fruits, fruit plates and the like, and then took the initiative to pay the bill and the waiter's tip.
An Rusong knew Macaulay’s purpose of coming, and Macaulay also knew that he knew his purpose. However, after the two of them took their seats, they did not talk about business directly. Instead, under Mike’s guidance, they first We talked about something off-topic.
Meanwhile, Mike asked to go to the toilet. An Rusong received the look from him and went with him.
While going to the toilet, Mike told An Rusong privately that Macaulay had a very good relationship with his brother. In addition, this person was not only the head of the "GC Fund", but also a partner of DFJ One of the reasons why he came to South Korea was to develop business in Asia, and his main target was the Internet field.
What Mike means is that after Macaulay came to South Korea, he was generally not optimistic about IT companies related to the Korean Internet field, because he could not see any bright spots, and several major game manufacturers There is no opportunity for him to get involved, so although he is not optimistic about the development of NGN, he still plans to make a tentative investment in it.
Of course, considering Macaulay’s views on NGN, even if he invests, he will make a large amount of investment, and the conditions may be relatively harsh. Therefore, Mike clearly told An Rusong that he was just helping the two parties to connect the line this time. He had no personal position in this and did not involve any interests. Therefore, An Rusong could follow his own intentions and negotiate with Macaulay. Go talk.
With Mike's honest confession, An Rusong felt confident. In fact, he is self-aware and knows very well the current development status of NGN. It is impossible for him to attract the attention of large venture capital institutions. Currently, most of the people who come to him are with the idea of "try it if you have a date but not a date" mentality, so even if they decide to invest, they cannot invest too much.
Macaulay is also a smart person. He knows that Mike and An Rusong excuse themselves to go to the toilet together, and there must be something to explain. Therefore, when the two return to the booth, he directly Let’s get down to business.
"An, as a venture capitalist, I am very interested in your NGN software," Macaulay leaned back on his chair, folded his hands on his lower abdomen, and said in a calm tone, "I want to know more about you. What plans do you have for the future development of NGN? Well, especially in In terms of profit. Are you ready to accept advertising business? Or are you ready to develop related membership services like China's Tencent? In your estimation, what kind of growth trend will NGN users have in the future? ? We can all ask questions like this Let’s talk.”
“Macaulay, before I formally introduce NGN, I need to make a statement first. As an instant messaging software, NGN is not exactly the same as Tencent, MSN, and ICQ,” An Rusong put his hands on the tabletop of the deck, slightly After thinking about it, he said, "We have our own core content."
Similar to this, An Rusong will declare in advance when facing any venture capitalists. This is not only to highlight his own differences, It is also to avoid future copyright disputes.
Macaulay smiled and did not interrupt. He himself invested in the Internet, so he naturally knew many rules in this regard.
“The future development plan of NGN does not include advertising business, at least in the short term,” An Rusong then said, “After all, ICQ’s lessons learned are enough. Eye-catching.”
In the past two years, ICQ had engaged in advertising push business for a period of time, which resulted in widespread dissatisfaction among users. In the end, ICQ had to remove the related business. However, An Rusong left another tail in this sentence. He said, "At least in the short term." How short is this short term? That still depends on whether NGN has the opportunity to become a monopoly giant in the future.
“As for membership services, NGN will naturally have them too,” An Rusong continued, “However, rather than discussing a simple profit-making issue, I would rather talk about a brand new concept.”
(End of this chapter)