"Oak Pacific Interactive received a 300 million USD investment from Japan SoftBank."
"Liu Ren, Vice President of Oak Pacific Interactive and founder of Donews, wrote on Donews that the total financing amounted to 300 million USD (approximately 2.2 billion RMB), accounting for about 35% of Oak Pacific Interactive's shares, jointly invested by SoftBank, Joho Capital, and SBI."
"An insider said that the selling point that attracted Japan SoftBank to Oak Pacific Interactive this time was its social networking site Xiaonei.com. This insider possessed the PPT presentation file that Oak Pacific Interactive showed to Japan SoftBank, and he said that 90% of the presentation discussed Xiaonei.com."
"Xiaonei.com's main customer base is students, and it is China's largest student-oriented social networking site, dubbed 'China's Facebook'. It was acquired by Oak Pacific Interactive in October 2006.
Oak Pacific Interactive originally planned to list Mop.com in 2006 but was unsuccessful. Afterward, due to tight funding, Oak Pacific Interactive conducted large-scale layoffs in September 2006. This time, securing SoftBank's financing allowed it to escape its predicament."
"Japan SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son will serve as a director of Oak Pacific Interactive, directly participating in operational decisions."
"..."
"However, Xiaonei.com's development was not smooth sailing. In front of it was a powerful competitor — Renren.com. Xiaonei.com faced strong resistance from the latter and had already fallen behind the latter in some key data. This was likely the reason Chen Yizhou was eager to secure financing."
"It is reported that Renren.com, launched last year, was founded by a freshman. With a 50 million USD Series A strategic investment from Sequoia Capital, he rose to become a leading figure among those under twenty in China."
In early July, major financial media outlets suddenly broke the news of Oak Pacific Group's successful financing.
In response to this news, Chen Pingjiang quickly convened an expanded board meeting.
Feng Tailin, the director introduced by Sequoia Capital, had previously secured a board seat through board elections, joined the board, and attended shareholder meetings to vote on or veto proposals concerning major issues such as company investment, financing, personnel, and distribution, and participate in important company decisions.
The first item on the board meeting agenda was to welcome Feng Tailin.
Chen Pingjiang introduced Feng Tailin to the other board members.
Feng Tailin appeared to be around forty years old and acted very humbly.
Before he came to Renren.com, Shen Nanpeng specifically sought him out, telling him to bring more eyes and ears, and fewer words.
"I presume everyone has already seen the news of Xiaonei.com's successful financing, and SoftBank's move is a heavy investment – 300 million USD, over 2 billion RMB. Xiaonei.com is bound to engage us in a decisive battle."
Chen Pingjiang looked around, his expression somewhat solemn.
In reality, following the normal trajectory, Xiaonei.com would only receive a total investment of 430 million USD (approximately 3 billion RMB) from SoftBank in April next year.
But Chen Pingjiang and Renren.com's early emergence nearly killed the 'old master' with wild punches, forcing the 'old master' to hastily initiate financing ahead of schedule.
Whether it was Renren Parking Rush or the arrival of Super Boy, both had a huge business impact on Xiaonei.com, with some data metrics not only failing to grow but even declining.
This also led to Xiaonei.com's financing amount and valuation shrinking by one-third compared to its previous life.
SoftBank's Masayoshi Son did not get the desired results with Renren.com and could only refocus his attention on Xiaonei.com.
As a newcomer to the board, Feng Tailin thought for a moment and said:
"This is Oak Pacific's Series D financing. Mop.com's IPO failed last year, and Chen Yizhou is now fighting with his back against the wall. We should indeed be vigilant. However, Oak Pacific is currently valued at 850 million USD, so it needs to achieve a market capitalization of at least around 2 billion USD for an IPO to be meaningful.
To reach a market capitalization of 2 billion USD, it would need at least over 1 billion RMB in revenue, but currently Oak Pacific Interactive is clearly a long way from that. I estimate that Oak Pacific Interactive will find it difficult to go public before 2010."
Chen Pingjiang nodded and said:
"That means if Oak Pacific wants to go public, it must defeat us, or at least gain a significant advantage in the competition against Renren.com. According to my estimation, they will engage us on three battlegrounds: 1. Social games; 2. Celebrities and internet celebrities; 3. Offline promotions."
Miao Bingwei was the first to state:
"In social games, we hold a first-mover advantage and our operations are quite mature. We have at least 10 minor version updates prepared, and the development of Renren Farm has also entered a critical phase. Even if Xiaonei.com also launches Parking Rush, we can remain invincible. Of course, objectively speaking, there will be an impact, but it won't be significant."
Zhuo Ling, who is responsible for celebrity and internet celebrity onboarding, although not a board member, also had the right to attend because it was an expanded meeting.
"According to President Chen's requirements, we have already contacted the agencies behind several top-tier celebrities. Negotiations are already midway, and I will finalize the collaborations completely before Xiaonei.com's first tranche of financing funds arrives."
This was intended to exploit a time difference.
Sequoia Capital's investment in Renren.com would arrive in several tranches, and the same applied to Xiaonei.com.
Even if both parties signed contracts, the funds wouldn't arrive so quickly.
By quickly finalizing contracts while Xiaonei.com was still short on funds, Xiaonei.com wouldn't be able to make much of a splash.
"Regarding government agencies and media, we first started with traditional media, and currently eight newspapers have already joined."
"..."
Chen Pingjiang made the final concluding remarks:
"Everyone, in the next six months, you must pay twelve thousand percent attention to prevent a fierce counterattack from Xiaonei.com, which is fighting with its back against the wall. Of course, as long as we complete the construction of our content ecosystem, it will be like an impregnable fortress, and our opponents will absolutely not be able to breach it."
This was not Chen Pingjiang's arrogance, but rather Renren.com having completed its work beforehand.
If top-tier celebrities and internet celebrities were quickly drawn to their side, Xiaonei.com would have no way to spend money.
And once all forces were gathered, Renren.com would truly possess the aura of a king: the strong would become stronger, and the weak weaker.
A Xiaonei.com that only had money would never be able to catch up.
For this point, one only needs to refer to the great battle between Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo.
Even an empire as strong as Tencent ultimately failed to cut down Sina Weibo.
...
The tense atmosphere before the big battle enveloped the 16th floor of Huijin Building.
All departments began operating at a frantic high speed.
The business negotiation department led by Zhuo Ling raced back and forth between several first-tier cities, putting in their utmost effort.
Renren Parking Rush also released two minor updates within ten days.
These two moves, one from the left and one from the right, solidly struck Xiaonei.com's weak spot.
Xiaonei.com's version of Parking Rush had already entered the testing phase and was originally slated to launch in another half a month at most.
Now Renren.com had updated with a new version, and whether to copy it or not was a big problem.
If they copied, they would inevitably delay their launch.
If they didn't copy, it meant they would be behind from the moment they launched.
Just as the technical department was indecisive, Chen Yizhou overrode all objections and delayed the launch.
Well, wouldn't you know it, what Xiaonei.com's entire team didn't expect was that after working overtime for a week, they finally synchronized with the competitor's latest version.
Renren.com had updated again, goddammit!
Instantly, everyone in the technical department's morale collapsed, and Chen Yizhou's face turned ashen.
You rascal!
This is simply outrageous!
But after fuming, they still had to honestly continue copying!
Otherwise, the sunk cost would be too high.
However, after Renren.com released its third minor update, Chen Yizhou was already numb.
If they kept dragging this out, wouldn't their copied version of Parking Rush not launch until several months later?
"They are treating us like monkeys; we can't let them succeed anymore. One final week of testing, and then we must launch no matter what after a week."
Xiaonei.com, no more following!
However, just after Xiaonei.com painstakingly fiddled with its own Parking Rush and launched it.
They were stunned to find that Tencent's QQ Parking Rush had also launched.
At the same time, another SNS social networking site named Kaixin001 also launched a social game called Friends For Sale.
The whole goddamn Jin-Xi Bei region was in utter chaos!
Chen Yizhou felt his blood pressure surging.
He had thought Renren.com was their only opponent, but unexpectedly, Tencent and Kaixin001 emerged from behind.
In just half a month, three social games appeared on the market.
These were the original Renren Parking Rush, the copied Xiaonei Parking Rush, QQ Parking Rush, and the unique Kaixin001's Friends For Sale.
Such a scene left insiders, outsiders, venture capital firms, and a vast number of users utterly stunned.
"The social networking war is raging, who will have the last laugh?"
"The social gaming wave has arrived, with capital vying for supremacy behind it!"
"Renren.com declared that its competitors' acts of plagiarism were egregious and would be resolved through legal means."
"Original Parking Rush VS Copied Parking Rush, which one is more appealing?"
"..."
"Renren.com Chairman Chen Pingjiang, in an interview with this newspaper, publicly accused its competitors, Tencent's QQ Parking Rush and Xiaonei.com's Xiaonei Parking Rush, of plagiarism, and criticized competitors for 'inferior competitive tactics and a complete lack of innovation.'
Chen Pingjiang stated that 'the core gameplay and principles of the competitors' Parking Rush are 90% similar to Renren Parking Rush, simply with a different name and a different skin.'"
"As well-known internet companies in China, Tencent and Oak Pacific's blatant and brazen plagiarism, and their use of plagiarism as a means to suppress competitors, has instead led to a lack of innovation in their own products, which is a low-quality and crude competitive behavior. We hope that Tencent and Oak Pacific can exercise self-discipline and prevent plagiarism from happening."
"Game plagiarism is commonplace in China, and debates surrounding the plagiarism of their products have never ceased. Competitors have always 'refused to admit wrongdoing,' tacitly condoning plagiarism and stifling innovation in the internet industry with extremely brutal methods."
"..."
In just a few days, as if it had been prepared long ago, the internet and traditional media were inundated with news of Xiaonei.com and Tencent plagiarizing Renren.com's game ideas.
Throughout the incident, Renren.com loudly decried its competitors' unethical behavior, presenting itself as both a victim and an innovator.
Related topics ranked first on Baidu's search trends.
This move immediately garnered sympathy from a large number of consumers and unsuspecting passersby, and emotions ran high for a time.
On the other side, a long-prepared legal team split into two groups and initiated lawsuits against Xiaonei.com and Tencent for their infringement.
(End of Chapter)