Chapter 161: Revenue of 13.5 Billion USD, Sister Chengzi's Series A Funding (Requesting Votes)

The next morning, just past 9 a. m., a convoy of luxury cars passed through the east gate of Xu Yuan and headed toward Zhuxianzhuang Technology Park.

There were few buildings along the street; aside from the school and the commercial street opposite, vast stretches of farmland stretched out, planted with endless winter wheat.

"Shouzhi, Orange Technology's headquarters is actually in a place like this?"

Yuri asked Zhou Shouzhi in English.

He had been to Huaguo and met many founders of tech companies; their office buildings were all located in the bustling Electronic Harbor or Software Park.

Yet Orange Technology was the first to set up its corporate headquarters in the suburban outskirts of a third- or fourth-tier city.

"Boss, Huaguo has developed rapidly in recent years. The surrounding infrastructure here is a bit lacking, but there are universities nearby that can supply mid-to-low-level staff in a timely manner. Moreover, Orange Technology offers research and development engineers salaries 20% to 30% higher than the market rate, so in terms of high-end talent reserves, it does not fall behind top-tier mobile phone manufacturers in second-tier cities."

Zhou Shouzhi, seated to Yuri's left, introduced the organizational structure and staff sources of Orange Technology to him in detail.

Upon learning that most of Orange Technology's R&D personnel came from Huawei, ZTE, OPPO, and Xiaomi, and even included researchers from Microsoft and Motorola, Yuri immediately dropped his condescending attitude.

"Orange Technology and the Orange Mobile Phone Factory belong to different entities. Judging from Chen Yansen's actions after securing funding from Lotte and Augusta, I believe his business focus leans more toward manufacturing rather than communication product R&D."

Yuri frowned, cursing Chen Yansen's cunning in his mind.

The other party had separated the R&D and production stages; DST had invested only in Orange Technology.

In fact, Yuri had little interest in the Orange Mobile Phone Factory; digital product assembly factories had low technical barriers, high investment costs, and would bring extremely limited returns to DST.

"I believe this is precisely where the other party is clever. From his moves to build a self-operated factory and supply chain, it is not difficult to see Chen Yansen's huge ambition in the communications industry."

Zhou Shouzhi offered a positive assessment.

It was worth noting that after the expansion of the Orange Mobile Phone Factory, the number of employees had approached 6,000, with an annual production capacity of up to 30 million smartphones; the equipment cost alone had nearly 2 billion invested.

Clearly, they were treating mobile phone manufacturing as the future core business!

"Shouzhi, I do not oppose investing in Orange Technology, but the specific valuation must be decided only after the financial and industry analysts complete their evaluation."

Yuri glanced at the desolate scenery outside the car window and smiled faintly.

This investment proposal had been vigorously promoted by Zhou Shouzhi.

Initially, the investment target he recommended was Xiaomi, but over these three months, Zhou Shouzhi had completely set Xiaomi aside and turned his attention to Orange Technology.

Yuri was very curious: what kind of business model had Orange Technology used to win over this investment genius from Harvard Business School?

Zhuxianzhuang Technology Park was less than ten kilometers from the east gate of Xu Yuan; after chatting for a while, Yuri and Zhou Shouzhi saw the office building district not far away.

On the facade of one of the six-story buildings hung a prominent Orange logo.

Yuri knew they had arrived at their destination.

Chen Yansen received a reminder call from the front desk and went downstairs with Gao Weilin, Ye Qiuping, and Wang Teng.

Everyone was dressed particularly formally today; even Wang Teng, who was usually so casual, wore a suit with his hair combed neatly.

When they reached the first floor, the DST convoy had just arrived at the park entrance.

Yuri stepped out of the car, Zhou Shouzhi followed closely behind, and more than a dozen accompanying personnel trailed after them, including financial and legal advisors, as well as several burly foreign bodyguards.

"Mr. Yuri, Mr. Zhou, welcome to visit Orange Technology. Please come in."

Chen Yansen smiled and stepped forward to greet them in fluent Russian.

Yuri was taken aback; he had not expected Chen Yansen, a Huaguo native, to speak Russian so authentically.

Times were different from thirty years ago; the number of college students proficient in Russian was extremely scarce.

"Mr. Chen, your accent is very standard," Yuri could not help but praise.

"Mr. Yuri, you flatter me. Shall we go to the R&D Department first, or the Industrial Design Department?"

Chen Yansen asked with a smile.

His pronunciation habits were all learned from original-language films; besides Russian, English, and French, he had also mastered several other languages, including Spanish and Arabic.

For Chen Yansen, learning a new language was a trivial matter that could be accomplished in one or two days.

"Mr. Chen, if you do not mind, I would like to visit the Design Department first," Yuri said this time in English.

After all, most of DST's accompanying personnel spoke only English, making Russian communication inconvenient.

"No problem," Chen Yansen nodded and walked to Yuri's right side.

The two walked side by side into the first-floor lobby and took the elevator straight to the third floor.

Building 8 had a small office area, but the workstations were spacious and not cramped at all.

In terms of average office space per person, Orange Technology was at least three times that of Jingdong.

Of course, after "Handsome Dong" secured funding, he was planning to buy a plot of land himself and build a brand new headquarters building.

"This is the Industrial Design Group; the area ahead is the Hardware Design Group; the office area adjacent to the west is the Testing Group."

Chen Yansen led Yuri, introducing the departments as they walked.

"I heard there are quite a few R&D engineers from Motorola and Microsoft here? Mr. Chen, why not move the company headquarters to Hucheng or Yanjing? That would be more beneficial for your company's recruitment efforts."

Yuri asked curiously.

"I am waiting for the best timing," Chen Yansen replied with a faint, ambiguous smile.

Yuri pondered for a long time but could not guess his thoughts, so he had to let it go.

Chen Yansen observed Yuri's expressions, subtle movements, and breathing frequency; none of these escaped his eyes.

Relying on his superhuman insight and reaction speed, he could easily see through Yuri's thoughts and predict his next move during their conversation.

This was a huge advantage in subsequent negotiations; he was certain that as long as the asking price was reasonable, the other party would agree.

This was a very obvious advantage in subsequent negotiations; he was firmly convinced that as long as his asking price was not excessive, the other party would agree.

His terrifying insight and reaction speed allowed him to easily grasp the other party's thoughts and next moves during his conversation with Yuri.

Afterwards, Chen Yansen led Yuri and Zhou Shouzhi on a brief tour of the Aurora System R&D Department.

Wang Teng held an Orange phone and demonstrated the theme design, personalized customization features, and the core garbage cleanup algorithm of Aurora OS 1.1 on the spot.

Yuri took the phone, downloaded a game from the Orange App Store, and tried it out immediately.

A 60Hz screen refresh rate, more than ten years later, would likely be criticized by users for insufficient smoothness and laggy interaction response, but in 2011, this was still a mainstream configuration.

Yuri didn't feel the experience was poor at all — after all, he knew this phone retailed for only 300 US dollars in Hua Country, and with such performance, he was especially delighted.

An hour later, the group returned to the 5th floor.

Zhou Shouzhi and Gao Weilin finished the handover, and with their assistants, went to the outer office area to verify financial and business data.

Chen Yansen invited Yuri to the office for tea — he chose Keemun black tea.

Yuri took a sip and said: "The flavor's a bit light. Add some lemon juice and sugar cubes, and it should taste better."

Chen Yansen smiled — tea leaves have a broad audience, and how one drinks them varies from person to person.

He gestured to Ye Qiuping, asking her to go get lemon juice and powdered sugar.

Yuri was very curious about Chen Yansen. Once seated, he had no intention of discussing business at all, and instead started asking about Chen Yansen's college life and entrepreneurial experience.

The data review could just be left to Zhou Shouzhi.

The two were of one mind, and just started chatting casually off the cuff.

During the chat, Yuri mentioned his younger daughter was doing an MBA in Lamp Country, otherwise he would definitely have brought her to meet Chen Yansen.

In his view, Chen Yansen stood 1.86 meters tall, was fluent in English and Russian, had outstanding business talent, and was absolutely among the best of his peers.

His Darya would surely like this kind of man.

Chen Yansen laughed after hearing this and teased: "Then I'll have to see a photo first."

Yuri burst out laughing — he found Chen Yansen a very interesting person, radiating strong confidence from every pore.

He pulled out his phone and showed a photo of his younger daughter — the girl had delicate features, a head of golden long hair, deep blue eyes, and a tall figure.

Chen Yansen glanced at it and said nothing.

A little foreign mare from North Ice Country — it wasn't as if he hadn't ridden one before. Back then, Feiyu Tech had recruited quite a few pretty girls from the north — during the day they worked hard selling goods in the livestream room, earning money desperately for Mr. Chen; at night they'd change into maid outfits and play little digging-radish games with Mr. Chen.

Afterward, Chen Yansen took out a brand-new, sealed Sister Chengzi phone and gave it to Yuri.

"Thank you, I really like this gift," Yuri said politely.

Chen Yansen didn't mind — it was just going through the motions.

He planned to have the brand department take some photos later, find a few media outlets to stir up a trending topic, saying the DST boss couldn't put down his Sister Chengzi phone.

A pot of tea finished, and it was time for lunch.

A convoy of over a dozen luxury cars rolled grandly toward the Sky Garden in the city center.

After lunch, the group returned to the tech park.

Yuri proposed visiting Given Pinbei, and Chen Yansen readily agreed.

The two strolled downstairs and walked into Building No. 6, followed by two tall bodyguards.

At this point Given Pinbei already had over 100 employees — the tech department was busy with web and mobile product development, the design department was finalizing the product style, and the business development department was contacting industrial belt factories across the country, inviting manufacturers to settle in Given Pinbei.

When they came across factories with both strong capability and willingness, the business development staff immediately applied for business trips, and after on-site visits, signed contracts face-to-face.

"Mr. Chen, does Given Pinbei need financing?" Yuri asked with keen interest after a tour.

In his view, Penguin hadn't even seen a product prototype, yet dared to invest 300 million US dollars and give a top-tier entry point — if he followed up with an investment, it would be hard to lose money.

After all, Penguin had already done investment due diligence; he was following up based on that sound decision, so the probability of making money was naturally high.

"No need for now. When Given Pinbei opens its Series A financing, I'll definitely contact Mr. Yuri."

Chen Yansen said with a smile, brushing it off casually.

Unless Yuri could help him sell goods to Europe and America, he didn't want DST to get involved.

An afternoon passed quickly.

Yuri and Zhou Shouzhi took a car and left, returning to the city-center hotel, where they made a comprehensive evaluation based on the data collected, in order to calculate a valuation satisfactory to both sides.

Last time Chen Yansen had rejected Zhou Shouzhi's 36-billion offer, which meant his psychological price was far higher than that.

In the hotel conference room, after a heated discussion, the finance and data teams reached a consensus based on the price-to-sales ratio valuation model.

They offered a high valuation of 46 billion, equivalent to about 7 billion US dollars — roughly more than three times Xiaomi's valuation.

Zhou Shouzhi felt the number was reasonable, but Xiaomi, with sales of only 700,000 units, was valued at 2 billion US dollars, while Sister Chengzi phones, with nearly 5 million units sold, were only valued at 7 billion.

It probably wouldn't meet Chen Yansen's expectations!

Of course, valuation couldn't be simply calculated by sales volume — Xiaomi's current low sales were merely due to production capacity.

The price had to be negotiated slowly; it couldn't be achieved overnight, and DST's investment inspection team hadn't expected to finalize things in a single day.

The next day, upon learning of DST's offer, Chen Yansen flatly refused.

Yuri discussed again with Zhou Shouzhi, and after weighing the options, raised the offer to 9 billion US dollars.

He also promised to personally step in, helping Sister Chengzi Tech negotiate supply prices with Gao Tong, Samsung, Sony and other manufacturers, striving for 5%–15% procurement discounts.

"Forget Samsung — Sister Chengzi phone's screen suppliers are Jingdongfang and Huaxing."

Chen Yansen said with a wave of his hand.

In 2011, Samsung's screens were indeed better in quality than domestic ones, but those stick-carrying rascals were rotten to the core, cutting supply volumes at critical moments.

Xiaomi ran into this kind of thing often in its first two years of business, and only later resolved to switch suppliers — Huawei had been burned plenty of times too.

That was why Jingdongfang later became so favored by phone manufacturers — Huawei, Transsion, and OPPO were all its important major clients.

The next day, Yuri left Xucheng.

His next stop was Hangcheng and Yanjing, to visit Mama Ali and Jingdong — after all, the two were DST's key investment projects this year.

Investing in two companies in the same track simultaneously — DST's financial strength was evident.

Two days later, news of Sister Chengzi Tech completing its Series A financing made the front-page headlines of portal websites.

At the top of the news was a group photo of DST boss Yuri, Hua Country regional partner Zhou Shouzhi, and Chen Yansen.

This round of financing was 1.35 billion US dollars, with a valuation of 9 billion US dollars, vaulting it to become a standout among domestic second-tier phone manufacturers.

For a time, Wang Xueting's recruitment work became much easier — more and more R&D engineers applied on their own initiative, and the entire HR department packed interviews tightly into every day.

Even Wang Teng, Ye Qiuping and others, serving as interviewers, had to participate in over a dozen second-round interviews a day.

Xucheng, this inland third- or fourth-tier small city, has slowly gained some fame in the tech circle.

(End of chapter)