Becoming a Movie Star, System Only Finished Loading After Ten Years-Chapter 440 - 430: Spending Money Like Water

If the crystal smartphone develops well, Xiaomi's market value could easily reach USD 45 billion when it IPOs.

By then, it might just cause a domino effect.

So, there's nothing to regret about giving up on Xiaomi now.

Qi Hao's bottom line is USD 4 billion.

USD 45 billion is the post-funding valuation, and after the actual funding, Donghao Venture Capital can't maintain a 10% stake.

USD 4 billion is already a pretty good price.

Xiaomi is being hyped by venture circles; otherwise, with such a questionable valuation, you'd have to at least take a 30% cut to hand it over.

If not favored by the capital market, it might even go for a 70% cut.

If you invest in a company that crashes, your assets will pop like a bubble and go up in smoke.

Lei Jun arranged a face-to-face meeting with Qi Hao, and Qi Hao accepted the appointment.

It wasn't a fight; the two had a simple meal and afternoon tea.

You could say they had a rather pleasant conversation.

Actually, Qi Hao quite admires Lei Jun. If he didn't already have Old Tian, and if Lei Jun wasn't already with Xiaomi, he would've liked to poach Lei Jun from Kingsoft to be the president.

It seems every leader dreams of having Lei Jun as their protege.

With the crystal smartphone being so close to launch, Lei Jun decided not to do any more pointless work, and both sides would just do their best from here on out.

Both of them prioritize users first, which makes them kind of appreciate each other.

Qi Hao promised to collaborate with Xiaomi on technology.

And Xiaomi expressed they would try to source as many patents and components as possible from North Hao Technology.

Being in the same circle, there's no need to fight to the death. If the competition becomes too intense, they might just call each other idiots and be done with it.

In the end, Donghao Venture Capital completely exited during Xiaomi's C round.

After deducting all costs, the final profit reached an astounding USD 3.8 billion.

About USD 1.5 billion of this money would go to North Hao Technology to fulfill the promise of investing RMB 10 billion over five years in research and development.

The initial RMB 1 billion had been almost burnt out over the past two years of struggling.

This new investment of over RMB 10 billion will greatly accelerate North Hao Technology's development pace.

Many times, research relies on spending money.

As long as you have enough money and are willing to spend it, you're sure to... well, not necessarily succeed.

But Qi Hao is a genius, after all.

His research essentially goes through the motions, so as long as there's sufficient funding, research is as smooth as drinking cool water.

This has made the entire North Hao Research Institute somewhat overconfident.

Some researchers who were originally seconded from schools became millionaires after receiving hefty bonuses twice in three months.

They simply resigned from their academic jobs to fully devote themselves to research.

To avoid being seen as violating any discipline.

In the first half of 2013, the patent output from North Hao Technology didn't differ much from the second half of 2012. The main reason is that many major projects were initiated this year, which require time to mature and yield results. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Research is just like that.

Some projects might take ten years or more to show any results.

Donghao Venture Capital also allocated USD 300 million to absorb shares of NVIDIA.

Such a large amount of money entering the open market makes it difficult to acquire full shares at the current price of USD 12.5 per share.

However, Qi Hao trusts Tongzi immensely, saying even at USD 125 per share, Qi Hao would feel it was a deal.

This matter is handled by professionals and doesn't require Qi Hao's attention.

Additionally, Zhang Nan hopes to create a PC brand.

The smartphone and computer industries have many complementary areas, so having a smartphone brand without a computer one seems like a waste of resources.

However, starting from scratch is not an option.

That would be too time-consuming.

The crystal smartphone wasn't exactly from scratch either; North Hao Technology integrated several smartphone brands that were phased out in the smart era or couldn't keep up with the competition to create the high-quality Crystal S1, even superior to Xiaomi.

Smartphones were easier to manage.

Because the prior cruising of counterfeit phones in Huaqiangbei gathered a wealth of talent.

MediaTek created opportunities for counterfeit phones, and they did have technical accumulation, producing quite a few innovative features, like reverse charging, pop-up cameras, and various design forms.

At the end of 2010, Shenzhen initiated a six-month "crackdown on intellectual property violations and counterfeit goods" campaign. It ultimately reshuffled the Huaqiangbei counterfeit phone market, with over 3,600 merchants exiting the market while capable counterfeit phone manufacturers began transitioning.

Alongside policy suppression, the Chinese smartphone industry emerged.

The market combined with talent made it a golden era for making smartphones.

Computers did not enjoy such convenience.

Though there were knock-offs, the technological barrier was higher, and there weren't that many market gaps.

If you didn't want to start from scratch, you could only acquire someone else's PC business.

Just like back when Lianxiang acquired IBM's PC business.

In 2004, Lianxiang was experiencing its darkest hour: Internet investments led to huge losses, domestic market share fell to 24%, and overseas business only accounted for 3%.

At the time, though IBM's PC department was heavily loss-making, it held a "gold mine" like ThinkPad.

During negotiations, Lianxiang had only HKD 3.1 billion in cash, and eventually, by introducing USD 350 million in capital from three Miguo consortia like Blackstone and securing a USD 600 million loan from 20 banks, they managed to put together the acquisition funds.

Lianxiang not only had to pay USD 650 million in cash but also take on USD 500 million in net liabilities.