The Ledger
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Pony Ma rejected Tencent's investment in Airwallex to build WeChat Pay internally
“The founder of Tencent didn't approve. After three months process, RCO pass you know, he just basically is like, because the idea is that this is going to help Tencent to do global, you know, VHAP settlement. And then Pony, the founder was like, why can't we b…”
Airwallex's Tencent deal took 3 years as Tencent built competing tech
“The Tencent deal took me three years. After that point it's just a big corporate, right? It's just take a long time. And it's the same thing from the, WeChat paid department. They were like, why can't we build ourself? So they end up built like essentially wha…”
Tencent's WeChat is likely the world's most valuable digital asset
“Tencent's WeChat was created on mobile, and it's probably the most valuable digital asset in the world today.”
Chinese tech giants prioritize early investment in breakout startups over copying them
“What I see happening more recently is not that those companies are copycatting and trying to kill startups. They're trying to identify the startups that have breakout potential and get money into them and invest in them as soon as possible.”
Alibaba and Tencent back rival startups rather than co-investing
“It's unlikely, for example, that both Alibaba and Tencent will come into the same company, and if one backs a company, then you can expect that the other will back a competing company in the space.”
Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent exert more market dominance than US giants
“The top three exert An almost disproportionate influence on the market relative to even Amazon or Google in the US.”
Sequoia refused to invest in Airwallex until Tencent committed
“The deal was stored and Sequoia was not willing to invest until Tencent kind of make a decision and are basically running out of money.”
ChingCloud and uCloud might remain independent from Chinese tech giants
“There are some cloud services companies like Ching Cloud and uCloud, which are big enough at the moment and have enough customers where they might be able to stay independent.”
Tencent and Sequoia led Airwallex's $80M Series B at $400M pre-money valuation
“Tencent and Sequoia said, we want to lead another round. So they basically lead a 400 dollar at a four hundred million dollar pre they invest eighty million dollars, so a 404 hundred eighty million dollar post. So they basically, but at that time the business …”
Tencent's investment in Airwallex brought in Sequoia and Mastercard
“So we got the investment the day after that. And then obviously you know, Sequoia and then Mastercard also came in with the, with Tencent.”
Neil Young: 55% of Tencent's revenues come from games
“People often forget that 55% of Tencent's revenues come from games.”
Zaveri: Tencent generates 50% of its revenue from microtransactions, not ads
“Tencent, for instance, historically continues to not monetize just through ads. 50% of its revenue comes through microtransactions”
Ilkka Paananen raised over $143M for Supercell prior to Tencent acquisition
“Prior to Tencent acquiring a majority stake in the company at a reported 10.2 billion dollar acquisition price, Ilka raised over one hundred and forty three million dollars for the company from Excel, Index, Atomico, IVP, LVP, Initial and Lifeline to name a fe…”