Free Web NovelChapter 881: Chapter 457: The Hidden Investment Tycoon!_2
This was a very significant press conference.
Yuan Zhongchen led the Yutu Robot team, and after three and a half years, they finally completed R-os, the robotics operating system. Today, they would announce the opening of the R-os system ports, allowing all interested programmers to participate in building the ecosystem and package functions.
Over the course of more than three years, the Yutu Robot team had evolved into Yutu Robot Co., Ltd., and had become a top technology service company highly favored by investors.
Yutu Robot’s main offerings were smart robotics ecosystems and custom robotics services, with their core research and development focused on the robotics operating system, aiming to unify the foundational code and architecture for robot development. Their main revenue came from providing robotics ecosystems and custom services.
Each company had different circumstances and needs for robots, and constructing the hardware foundation for building robots was insufficient; it was impossible to provide a standard configuration of operational functions like computers.
This is where robotics ecosystems and custom services were needed.
It might seem like there was a low market demand for robotic services, but in reality, the field of robots and AI was flourishing globally. Yutu Robot might have been the dark horse in the industry, but by relying on their foundational homogenous code, they had efficiently developed dozens of collaborators and clients.
The foundational homogenous code was crucial for the development of the R-os system.
The financing for Yutu Robot Company was not extensive, as it had only gone through two rounds of funding. However, the scale of the second round had already exceeded 500 million yuan, and as the company continued to expand, its valuation kept rising.
The current valuation hovered around 2.8 billion yuan, with Zhao Yi holding the largest share of the company’s stock.
Zhao Yi was the largest shareholder of Yutu Robot Co., Ltd., with a shareholding ratio of twenty-one percent. Apart from the initial 2 million yuan invested during Yutu Team’s formation, he subsequently invested nearly 10 million yuan.
million yuan might not seem much relative to the valuation, but Zhao Yi made his investment when Yutu Robot was still a team, before the company had even been formally established, let alone considering any financing.
Additionally, Zhao Yi provided technical support, contributing the source code for technologies such as color recognition and Dynamic Image Analysis.
This was a technical investment for equity.
Zhao Yi’s financial contribution might not have been substantial, but his investment of funds and technology was crucial for Yutu Robot. Therefore, it made sense that he held the highest proportion of shares.
The second largest shareholder of Yutu Robot Co., Ltd. was Shengmao Technology Group, with a sixteen percent shareholding. They were the main investors in the second funding round, contributing a direct investment of 430 million yuan. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
Other major shareholders included Tianmei Zhi from the first round of financing, the original Universe Interactive, and Yuan Zhongchen himself, with shareholdings of eleven, eight, and seven percent respectively. The rest of the shares were owned by the earliest employees and miscellaneous small investors.
Zhang Zhen was the ’spare change’ among these small investors.
Having been the earliest to invest in the Yutu Robot team and managing its day-to-day affairs, Zhang Zhen initially held three percent of the shares. Now, they had been diluted to less than 0.6 percent.
This ratio was already quite high.
Based on the initial investment of two hundred thousand yuan, the market value of Zhang Zhen’s shares was at least 14 million yuan or more, yielding a return on investment of seventy to eighty times, and inciting the envy of many.
But still, Zhang Zhen was not satisfied, mainly because of the comparison. Zhao Yi had dozens of times more shares than he did, and looking at his meager share, while thinking about how he had run around for the Yutu Robot team for years...
He was truly bitter!
"I just don’t have the money. If I did, I’d give all of it to Yuan Zhongchen, and then, I’d be the biggest shareholder!" Zhang Zhen, having waited for Zhao Yi at the venue of the press conference, immediately started complaining as soon as they met.
Zhao Yi, feeling empathetic, patted Zhang Zhen on the shoulder and sighed, "I’m short on money too! Back then, if I had money, I would have invested right from the start in companies like Penguin, Fruit, Microsoft... and if everything went as planned, I would probably be the richest man in the world now!"
Zhang Zhen nearly spat out blood, and could only shake his head, saying, "Anyway, from now on, I’m sticking with you."
"What? Stick with me?"
"I mean, stick with your investments!" Zhang Zhen said as if it were self-evident, "I’ve also taken out some money to join you in stock investments, and the returns are really... incredible!" He said this while giving a big thumbs up.
Zhang Zhen was one of the few who knew about Zhao Yi’s assets.
Zhao Yi had patented technologies in M Country that brought in high income, sold professional books translated into several languages worldwide, and his overseas income had to be funneled through Star Billion Investment Corporation.
Star Billion Investment Corporation was listed under the initially established Star Billion Technology Company, set up with the purpose of managing Zhao Yi’s personal foreign income as well as serving as a tax shelter. Zhao Yi personally owned ninety-nine percent of the shares, with the remaining one percent distributed among several actual managers in the company.
Zhang Zhen was one of them.
He was responsible for managing Zhao Yi’s foreign income. Initially, it was just a simple favor, but he later realized how substantial Zhao Yi’s income was. Not considering the ’book sales’, just the Digital Compression Technology patent royalties alone amounted to over 10 million US dollars last year.
Up to now, Star Billion Investment Corporation’s total income exceeded 30 million US dollars, and over eighty percent of this was invested by Zhao Yi himself in the M Country stock market as per his directive. It appeared as if he was spending where he earned, but in actuality, it was indeed investment, and a highly profitable one at that.
