LivingSocial再融资之谜

    团购网站LivingSocial到底出了什么事？

    上周三上午传出消息，LivingSocial在最新一轮融资中融得1.1亿美元。对这家团购网站来说，这似乎是一个期待已久、见证奇迹的时刻。尤其是考虑到此前，这家公司的投资者亚马逊（Amazon.com）在最近的季度财报中刚刚大幅减记了它手头所持这家股份的价值。

    但乌云很快笼罩过来，一家名为PrivCo的研究机构称，这轮融资其实附带着大量的苛刻条款、消除创始人和员工股份价值的可转换债务。PrivCo还称，这是一轮“紧急”融资目的是让LivingSocial避免立即破产的命运。

    上周四上午早些时候，多位投资行业消息人士都在跟《财富》杂志（Fortune）进行交流时对PrivCo的报告提出质疑，现在我们获得了LivingSocial首席执行官蒂姆•奥肖内西发给员工的一份备忘录，以下是备忘录全文：

    伙伴们：

    鉴于最近一份关于我们公司融资的报告包含了显著的误差和错误，我想在这里提供关于那轮融资的更多细节。

    如果你们看已经看到了其中一些错误的信息，下面我要说的才是真实的情况：

    •这并不是一轮紧急融资。我们在12月23日收到第一份风险投资协议，也就是近两个月前，这轮融资是有组织、经过深思熟虑的。

    •这轮融资是股权投资，而不是债务输注。

    •我们没有对之前几轮融资确定的投资者股份进行重新定价。

    •这轮融资不包括发行认股权证。

    •不存在“两位数的”现金股利（跟典型的融资——包括我们公司过去几轮融资——一样，我们只针对一类股票象征性地发放3%的现金股利）。

    •不存在“4倍的优先清算权”（再次重申，跟大多数融资一样，我们的融资涉及优先清算权，但它根据一个关键指标上下浮动，绝对达不到4倍）。

    •报告中引用一位所谓“LivingSocial高级传媒主管”的说法纯属捏造。

    •PrivCo网站上列出的参与本轮融资的投资者中有三分之二并没有参与，其中有一位甚至不是投资公司的成员。

    What really happened at LivingSocial?

    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 Amazon.com (AMZN) significantly wrote down its LivingSocial investment in recent quarterly earning reports.

    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.

    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:

    Hey folks,

    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.

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

    •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.

    •This was an equity round, not a debt infusion.

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

    •There were no warrants issued as part of this round.

    •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.)

    •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.)

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

    •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.