LivingSocial 再融資之謎

What really happened at LivingSocial?

團購網站LivingSocial到底出了什麼事？

Yesterday morning, news leaked that the company had raised $110 million in new financing. Seemed to be a long-awaited hallelujah moment for the daily deal company, particularly after investor (AMZN) significantly wrote down its LivingSocial investment in recent quarterly earning reports.

上週三上午傳出消息，LivingSocial在最新一輪融資中融得1.1億美元。對這家團購網站來說，這似乎是一個期待已久、見證奇蹟的時刻。尤其是考慮到此前，這家公司的投資者亞馬遜（）在最近的季度財報中剛剛大幅減記了它手頭所持這家股份的價值。

But the storm clouds came quickly, when a research group called PrivCo claimed that the financing actually was convertible debt that wiped out the value of founder and employee liquidity and included a whole rash of onerous terms. PrivCo also claimed that the round was "emergency" round of funding that staved off imminent bankruptcy.

但烏雲很快籠罩過來，一家名爲PrivCo的研究機構稱，這輪融資其實附帶着大量的苛刻條款、消除創始人和員工股份價值的可轉換債務。PrivCo還稱，這是一輪“緊急”融資目的是讓LivingSocial避免立即破產的命運。

Multiple investor sources took issue with the PrivCo report during background conversations earlier this morning, and now Fortune has obtained a memo that LivingSocial CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy just issued to employees. Here it is, in its entirety:

上週四上午早些時候，多位投資行業消息人士都在跟《財富》雜誌（Fortune）進行交流時對PrivCo的報告提出質疑，現在我們獲得了LivingSocial首席執行官蒂姆奧肖內西發給員工的一份備忘錄，以下是備忘錄全文：

Hey folks,

夥伴們：

In light of a recent report on our financing round that contained significant inaccuracies and errors, I wanted to provide some additional details on yesterday's round.

鑑於最近一份關於我們公司融資的報告包含了顯著的誤差和錯誤，我想在這裏提供關於那輪融資的更多細節。

If you've seen some of that misinformation, here's the real story:

如果你們看已經看到了其中一些錯誤的信息，下面我要說的纔是真實的情況：

This was not an emergency round. We received our first term sheet on December 23rd, nearly two months ago, and this has been an organized, thought-out process.

這並不是一輪緊急融資。我們在12月23日收到第一份風險投資協議，也就是近兩個月前，這輪融資是有組織、經過深思熟慮的。

This was an equity round, not a debt infusion.

這輪融資是股權投資，而不是債務輸注。

There was no re-pricing of investor shares from previous rounds.

我們沒有對之前幾輪融資確定的投資者股份進行重新定價。

There were no warrants issued as part of this round.

這輪融資不包括髮行認股權證。

There were no "double-digit" cash dividends. (Typical of many financing rounds, including our own past rounds, there was a nominal 3% dividend for a class of shares.)

不存在“兩位數的”現金股利（跟典型的融資——包括我們公司過去幾輪融資——一樣，我們只針對一類股票象徵性地發放3%的現金股利）。

There is no "4x liquidation preference." (Once again, typical of almost all venture rounds, there is a liquidation preference, but it slides up or down based on a key metric and gets nowhere near 4x.)

不存在“4倍的優先清算權”（再次重申，跟大多數融資一樣，我們的融資涉及優先清算權，但它根據一個關鍵指標上下浮動，絕對達不到4倍）。

The quotes from a "senior LivingSocial communication executive" are straight up fiction.

報告中引用一位所謂“LivingSocial高級傳媒主管”的說法純屬捏造。

Two of the three investors listed on the PrivCo site as participating in the round didn't participate, and one isn't even an investor in the company.

PrivCo網站上列出的參與本輪融資的投資者中有三分之二並沒有參與，其中有一位甚至不是投資公司的成員。

On valuation, people always seem to be overly enamored with market value, which has puzzled me because as a private company, there is no liquid market on which to buy and sell shares, so a valuation is established without any degree of market efficiency. In short, it's an educated guess between the company and a set of investors at one particular snapshot in time.

就估值而論，人們似乎總是過分迷戀市場價值。這個問題同樣一直困擾着我，因爲作爲一傢俬人公司，並不存在一個買賣股票的流動性市場，所以估值的確定沒有把任何程度上的市場效率考慮在內。簡言之，估值是公司和一組投資者在某一特定時間點進行的有根據猜測。

But nevertheless here goes. Yes, this was a down round, which I'm sure is not a shock to anyone. Our main comp in the market is down significantly from when we last fundraised. In this round, we sold 7.5% of the company for $110mm. Although there were some bells and whistles associated with those shares, as mentioned above, this should give you some idea of the current valuation of the company.

但不管怎樣，事情是這樣的。不錯，這確實是一次估值較低的融資（down round，指投資者在一輪融資中購買同一家公司股票的價格低於對上一次融資投資者支付價格的情況——譯註），我敢肯定沒有人會覺得吃驚。跟上一輪融資時比較起來，我們公司的估值已經大幅縮水。在本輪融資中，我們將公司7.5%的股份作價1.1億美元。不過，正如前面提到的，那部分股份還附加了一些條款，這些應該能夠讓你們對公司目前的估值水平有所瞭解了。

So how does this round impact employee stock? In short, some, but not much. Basically, the preference stack is a little higher now. At any valuation over $1B, though, we clear that stack by quite a bit. For comparison, our major competitor's market cap is now $3.9B. In the event of an IPO, all preferred stock becomes common stock, and the preference stack goes away.

那麼，本輪融資對員工股份有什麼影響呢？簡言之，有影響，但影響並不是很大。基本上，現在疊加起來的清算優先權有點高。不過，我們在公司估值超過10億美元的時候清理了一大部分優先權。作爲比較，我們主要競爭對手的市值現在是39億美元。在進行首次公開募股後，所有的優先股都會變成普通股，清算優先權也就消失了。

We are a company that does over half a billion in revenue. If we stay diligent, we hope to turn the corner to become profitable soon. Thanks to this round, we have significantly more capital to be able to be opportunistic and drive the future growth of the business.

我們公司的年營收超過5億美元，如果我們繼續努力下去，公司有望在不久的將來扭虧爲盈。得益於這輪融資，我們獲得了更多的資金以抓住機遇，推動公司業務在未來的增長。

Hopefully this will help clear up any questions you may have or get on yesterday's round. Now it's back to executing on our plan.

如果你們對這輪融資存在或產生了任何疑問，希望這份備忘錄有助於澄清問題。現在，我們該回頭執行我們的計劃了。

This is a pretty damning indictment of PrivCo, which regularly distributes information on private company financings. I managed to reach PrivCo CEO Sam Hamadeh, but said he'd call me right back. Hasn't happened yet. Will update if and when I hear from him.

PrivCo定期發佈有關私人公司融資的信息，這份備忘錄是對該公司非常嚴肅的控告。我設法聯繫到PrivCo的首席執行官山姆哈馬德，不過他說會打電話給我。電話還沒打過來，我將在聽過他的說法後對本文進行更新。

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with Hamadeh, who is standing by his original report. He says O'Shaughnessy is misleading his own employees, and that classifying the round as "equity" is a technicality given all of the debt-like provisions PrivCo continues to believe were attached. He also says that PrivCo spoke with a LivingSocial spokesman prior to publishing, and sent him a draft of the report with a request for any needed corrections. When nothing came back four hours later, PrivCo published.

最新消息：我剛剛結束與哈馬德的通話，他仍然堅持原先報告的觀點。哈馬德說，奧肖內西是在誤導自己的員工，鑑於那些附加的類債務條款，他把這輪融資定性爲“股權投資”是在說漂亮話。他還表示，PrivCo在發佈報告之前跟LivingSocial的發言人進行了溝通，向後者寄送了一份草稿，並詢問需要更正的地方。LivingSocial沒有做出迴應，PrivCo在四個小時之後才發佈了這份報告。

"I don't think the real story here is the details of the financing," Hamadeh said. "It's what's going to happen to the little guys, all of the merchants who are really the company's unsecured creditors, if LivingSocial goes bankrupt... You'll see that we were right in six or nine months."

“我不認爲真相在於融資的細節，”哈馬德說。“而是在於弱勢羣體——即所有商家，他們是LivingSocial真正的無擔保債權人——將要面對的情況，如果LivingSocial破產的話……只需6-9個月的時間，你就能看到我們說的沒錯。”

Worth noting that if O'Shaughnessy really misled his investors -- in a memo that almost certainly was vetted by company attorneys -- he would be opening both himself and the company to major liabilities.

值得指出的是，如果奧肖內西真的誤導了自己的投資者——幾乎可以肯定的是，其備忘錄經過了公司律師的審覈——那麼他將讓自己和公司擔上重大責任。

But have no fear. There is indeed a way to settle this he-said/he-said once and for all -- find the filing that LivingSocial sent to the Delaware Division of Corporations. Check back shortly...

但不要擔心，確實有一個辦法可以釐清兩人的不同言論——找到LivingSocial提交給特拉華州企業管理部門的監管文件。稍後還會進行更新……

UPDATE II: I have just begun skimming through LivingSocial's charter filing with Delaware. It's long, but this round clearly was preferred stock (i.e., equity). This is in stark contract to what PrivCo reported, when it claimed that "EQUITY or stock was NOT issued today."

最新消息2：我剛開始瀏覽LivingSocial提交給特拉華州的監管文件。內容很長，但這輪融資顯然是優先股交易（也即股權投資）。這跟PrivCo報告的結論截然不同，該機構稱“今天的這輪融資不涉及股權或股票。”

Moreover, the filing says that participants "shall be entitled to receive cumulative dividends at the rate of three percent." Again, PrivCo had claimed "Double-digit annual cash dividends."

此外，這份文件還稱投資者“有權獲得3%的累計優先股股利。”而PrivCo卻稱存在“兩位數的年度現金股利。”

The filing does not identify investors in the new round, but Fortune has learned that they included existing backers Amazon and Revolution. Among those insiders not participating were Grotech Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and T. Rowe Price.

這份文件沒有指明新一輪融資的投資者都有哪些，但《財富》瞭解到，其中包括亞馬遜和風投公司Revolution這些原有的投資者，而沒有參與這輪融資的投資者包括Grotech Ventures、光速創投（Lightspeed Venture Partners）以及普萊斯基金（T. Rowe Price）。

Also worth noting that I spoke with a source close to the company, who tells me that the competing term sheet was at the same valuation as what insiders offered, but that company decided to stick with its current investors. The prospective investor was said to be a "familiar name," but not a venture capital firm. That same source insists LivingSocial was not days or weeks away from a bankruptcy filing, adding that it had around $28 million in cash at its February low point and was on plan to steadily increase that number even without the new financing. Had that figure not increased, and had no new investment been forthcoming, it still could have survived for several more months.

另外值得一提的是，據我採訪的一位接近LivingSocial的消息人士稱，有外部投資者願意在同等估值水平上參與融資，但該公司還是決定繼續接受現有投資者的資金。這位潛在的投資者據稱是一個“耳熟能詳的人物”，並非一家風險投資公司。這位消息人士堅稱，LivingSocial並不是再過幾天或是幾周就要破產，該公司在2月份最低點時仍手握2,800萬美元現金，即使沒有新一輪的融資，LivingSocial也在計劃穩步增加現金儲備。即使這個數字沒有增加，新一輪融資也沒能完成，LivingSocial仍然可以存活數月之久。