Chapter 145: Chapter 128 High-End Operation

No wonder Tong Zelan organized this class reunion.

It turns out she also did it to raise financing for the angel round project she had just invested in.

There’s really nothing much to say about it, you can invest if you want at the reunion, and she wouldn’t bring any messy projects just to trick you.

At her level, personal reputation becomes very important.

Raising a hundred million in funding with so many classmates contributing is too easy.

Many people don’t even care whether it ultimately succeeds or fails.

They just treat it as a way to get closer to Tong Zelan.

Later, classmates got together to drink tea and talk about other things.

Old Yang, who is in the hospitality industry, said homestays are popular now, but they are hard to scale up.

They need to be located in scenic areas, making it extremely difficult to form a chain.

Not like Jinjiang or Qixi which can be easily replicated.

There were also talks about how it’s easier now to start online travel or food delivery services.

Speaking of food delivery, there’s no need to mention it, the market is too large and has already been divided between Penguin and Alibaba.

In the internet business, if Penguin and Alibaba are both interested in something, ordinary people hardly stand a chance.

Just like the taxi market, Penguin invested in Didi and Alibaba invested in Kuaidi.

These two companies are fiercely competing in the market.

Tong Zelan’s international investment bank invested in Didi, and after the initial fierce competition from many companies in the ride-hailing market,

only these two major players were left.

Many classmates, especially Huang Bin who is in the sharing economy, were very interested and eager to know some insider details.

Other classmates were also curious, Chen Pingsheng included, as it was simply too crazy.

Have you seen any company burning billions in a day?

Now, these two companies are in exactly that situation.

Seeing their interest, Tong Zelan added,

“The situation is very special now, it’s not so much Didi versus Kuaidi, but rather their backers, Penguin against Alibaba clashing in yet another market.”

“You all know the two, one is the social media giant, the other the e-commerce giant. They fought over several rounds before, investors from both sides putting in tens of billions in hard cash hoping to exhaust each other until only one survives and can end this costly war of attrition, setting the final rules of the game.”

“Unfortunately, whether it’s Alibaba-led Kuaidi wanting to exhaust Penguin-led Didi, or the other way around, it’s not going to happen.”

“Now investors on both sides are getting restless, urgently hoping they can sit down and talk, and the most likely outcome is a merger.”

“Merge after all this competition?”

Huang Pujun, who has no business acumen, interjected.

Tong Zelan glanced at her dismissively, not deigning to explain.

“It’s probably going to be like that.”

Huang Bin said, “If they don’t merge and keep competing like this, no investor can stand it.”

“Indeed.” Old Yang agreed, “The internet is truly ruthless. Only when one player is left can it set the rules of the game and start thinking about making money.”

“It’s been so many years, but the internet is still dominated by these three big mountains. Who knows how many years it will take for someone to really come up and challenge them slightly.”

No one could give a clear answer, not even Tong Zelan herself found it too difficult.

The three giants of the internet.

Social media, search, and e-commerce, BAT have deeply rooted themselves in their respective realms unless a disruptive company emerges,

capable of seizing more user time.

Such a disruptive model, Tong Zelan couldn’t think of it.

She didn’t even believe anyone could achieve it.

It must be said that even in such a small class reunion, it contained an abundance of business information.

Even Chen Pingsheng felt greatly benefited being part of it.

Tong Zelan was always at the cutting edge of the era; besides internet, new energy vehicles might be the next global phenomenon after smartphones.

This project threshold is very high, starting at the level of tens of billions in capital.

None of the competitors would be easy, and she also briefed about the global situation of new energy vehicles.

In China, the first to propose entering new energy vehicles was LeEco’s Jia Yueting.

He called it very early and indeed had a unique vision, already preparing to start financing this year.

“Do you think his venture into new energy vehicles might succeed?”

“Unlikely.” Tong Zelan evaluated in just one word, mainly because manufacturing cars is not like running an internet company, where you can burn cash to create a unicorn.

Besides large capital requirements, car manufacturing also faces extremely high technical thresholds.

“Jia Yueting is impressive, but he’s too involved in too many things, too diversified.”

Tong Zelan commented, “Abroad, any founder who excels in a high-tech company needs to be extremely focused. Looking at high-tech companies overseas, almost none succeed like he does, not to mention Tesla which had already been in this field for ten years.”

Frankly speaking, LeEco’s plate is too cluttered, trying to do everything and meddling in everything, but none is done excellently.

From Tong Zelan’s perspective, that was a scary thing, frankly still a potential collapse.

If that happens, it would mean a total breakdown.

Among this group of classmates, she always felt that Chen Pingsheng was the most stable.

The reason is simple, with no debt at all.

If any of them collapsed, it would not affect another.

It’s equivalent to having many baskets, and they are also set apart.

LeEco, on the other hand, is completely different, with many more baskets, each filled with eggs.

The danger lies in him using the same pole to shoulder them all.

If a funding problem arises, these projects, supported by financing and burning money, are doomed to be illusions.