73: Chapter 73 African Internet Horse Racing

Nigeria, Lagos. Afro Chat Headquarters.

The 28-year-old founder, Chidi, was sitting in his exquisitely decorated office; after all, now that he was an entrepreneur, regardless of whether he succeeded or not, he had to enjoy himself properly.

But now he had no time to enjoy it; he was staring at the huge map of the African market on the wall.

The map was densely packed with orange pins, each representing a city with over 10,000 users, while the occasional sporadic red pin represented a city that had broken through 100,000 users.

Three months ago, these pins were still concentrated in Nigeria, but now they had spread to Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia...

At this moment, his secretary pushed the door open and entered, reporting excitedly: "Afro Chat's registered users have exceeded 5 million."

Chidi did not smile; instead, he became even more restless.

5 million users sounded like a lot, but on this continent of Africa with its 1.2 billion people, it was just a drop in the bucket.

More importantly, he knew that when he took the investment last time, in Huang Tianya's office, there was another document listing thirty-something other African internet companies.

Social, payment, e-commerce, gaming, music...

Every company had received seed funding, and now everyone was expanding desperately. The soil of the African market was relatively barren; it couldn't support so many enterprises.

Based on his experience, after half a year, there would be at most two companies left in each track, and after a year, only one might survive.

Raising Gu.

This was a naked game of raising Gu; they were using money to raise dozens of Gu insects at the same time, letting them fight each other. No matter how many survived in the end, they would become the overlords of the African internet, and they would reap the rewards.

And his life's work, Afro Chat, was just one of the dozens of little bugs.

"Boss, over the past week, we have added 700,000 new users, with 2.2 million daily active users. In our Nigeria, our market share has reached 38%, surpassing the African versions of other social apps."

"What about the others?"

Chidi didn't care about these data points; he was more concerned about his competitors.

The secretary's expression was no longer happy; instead, it was filled with nervousness.

"Konnect (another social app funded by Huaxin Investment), they received 5 million in Series A financing last week and are currently engaging in crazy subsidies in Kenya."

"The slogan is 'Let all Africans get online; just register and get 100MB of data for free.' Currently, their user data has already exceeded 4 million, and the gap with us is getting smaller and smaller."

Chidi's face changed again.

4 million versus 5 million—the gap wasn't big. If Konnect continued to burn money, they would catch up soon.

And Chidi knew that Konnect's founder had returned from Silicon Valley in the United States. He was well-versed in the internet startup path of the United States, at least more so than him, and knew how to expand rapidly.

Of course, what he didn't expect was his true opponent: AfriLink.

"Contact Mr. Huang."

After much thought, he made this decision. "I want to add more investment. To survive, the money-burning war must begin."

...

Yangcheng. Huaxin Investment office.

Huang Tianya looked at Chidi in the video conference, his face full of professional blessings: "Chidi, congratulations on your users exceeding 5 million. Your execution is very strong, and I am very optimistic about you."

"Thank you, Mr. Huang, but this is not enough."

As a founder, Chidi was not blinded by these false flatteries.

"I want to offer another 20% of shares for 10 million USD, bringing the post-financing valuation to 50 million USD."

Huang Tianya didn't speak; he just looked at him with disdain.

That expression seemed to say: A toad wanting to eat swan meat—even a toad needs to have something; what do you have?

"Three months ago, Afro Chat was only valued at 10 million Chinese Yuan. Now you think it's worth 50 million USD. This increase... I don't know where you get your confidence."

"Because our value has already been proven by this data." Chidi took out the data he had prepared on the side. "5 million registered users, 2.2 million daily active users, and the average daily usage time per user is 87 minutes."

"This data has already surpassed Facebook's performance in Africa. More importantly, 20% of our users are Transsion mobile users; they use Taishan OS. Our application is deeply bound with the system, and our moat is much deeper than Facebook's."

He spoke very confidently, believing that Afro Chat was worth this price, but Huang Tianya accurately heard the hidden meaning behind his words.

"Chidi, what are you worried about? Do you know how much these numbers are worth?" Huang Tianya asked directly.

"Nothing."

Following that, Chidi was silent for a long while before finally choosing to confess: "Mr. Huang, Huaxin currently holds 50% of Afro Chat's shares. If you take this round of financing again, your shares will reach 70%."

"This..."

"I... I hope to introduce other strategic investors in the next round of financing."

The last sentence completely exposed his ambition, but Huang Tianya laughed.

Checks and balances!

This African entrepreneur had already thought about the issue of control after equity dilution. He didn't want Huaxin to be the sole dominant force; he wanted to introduce other investors to create checks and balances.

Even though it was supported and incubated by them.

However, this choice actually made Huang Tianya think more highly of him.

He is a smart person.

"Fine." Huang Tianya agreed very readily.

"However, this time, Afro Chat is not worth this price. The financial crisis has already proven that the internet is a bubble; its risk resistance is far inferior to the real economy."

"So I can only give 5 million USD for 20% of the shares."

"If you agree, I will have the staff over there send you the agreement."

"Regarding the problem you are worried about, I can promise that in the next round of financing, China Star will follow up with at most 50%."

"Thank you, Mr. Huang. I accept these terms."

After hanging up the phone, Huang Tianya called his assistant over again: "Notify the founder of AfriLink to come and discuss financing as well. Give them 6 million USD, same conditions."

AfriLink was another instant messaging company invested in by Huaxin Investment. Currently, it ranked third in this track, with 2.85 million cumulative registered users.

But the daily active users were as high as 2.2 million, which was the one Huang Tianya was most optimistic about among these companies.

When the assistant heard this, he nodded slightly, then looked at him with confusion: "Mr. Huang, aren't you making the three of them fight even harder by doing this?"

"That is exactly what I want—to make them fight." Huang Tianya took a piece of paper out of the drawer and gently crossed out the line under 'casting a wide net'. The next line was 'Horse Racing'...