Chatri Sityodtong explains ONE FC's billion dollar valuation

[SSgt Dickweed]

From LinkedIn:

I was offered US$100m after a 1 hour breakfast.

A couple of years ago, I had breakfast with Sequoia Capital's Michael Moritz (Chairman), Douglas Leone (Global Managing Partner), and Shailendra J Singh (Managing Director) here in Singapore. Not only was I blown away by their intelligence and wisdom, but I was so impressed by their humility and kindness. Michael and Doug are legends for having built the most successful venture capital firm in history with investments like Apple, YouTube, Google, WhatsApp, Airbnb, Oracle, and many others. After grilling me with questions, they told me that I was an authentic founder, an entrepreneur whose life calling is that particular business. They also said that, when an authentic founder leads a great company with both a powerful business model and a huge market opportunity, the equity has the potential to compound at high rates over long periods of time.

A few hours later, Shailendra graciously offered to lead the next round with a US$100m investment into ONE Championship at a valuation in the US$1 billion range. (Of course, they had already completed months of due diligence on our viewership data, financials, leadership team, and market opportunity). I will forever be full of gratitude to Michael, Doug, and Shailendra. #gratitude
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yodchatri/

I am guessing this is a practice of creative accounting on Sequoia's part if true (likely not). They seem to be going for tax writeoffs in investing 100M USD on a company likely not gonna earn more than that in the next 10 years. But tf do I know? If they find a Gomi or something, they could hit it out of the park and be a legit billion dollar company someday.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

 

[EndlessCritic]

After grilling me with questions, they told me that I was an authentic founder, an entrepreneur whose life calling is that particular business.

Is he sure this happened at a Sequoia meeting and not an Amway meeting?

 

[rob mafia]

From LinkedIn:

I was offered US$100m after a 1 hour breakfast.

A couple of years ago, I had breakfast with Sequoia Capital's Michael Moritz (Chairman), Douglas Leone (Global Managing Partner), and Shailendra J Singh (Managing Director) here in Singapore. Not only was I blown away by their intelligence and wisdom, but I was so impressed by their humility and kindness. Michael and Doug are legends for having built the most successful venture capital firm in history with investments like Apple, YouTube, Google, WhatsApp, Airbnb, Oracle, and many others. After grilling me with questions, they told me that I was an authentic founder, an entrepreneur whose life calling is that particular business. They also said that, when an authentic founder leads a great company with both a powerful business model and a huge market opportunity, the equity has the potential to compound at high rates over long periods of time.

A few hours later, Shailendra graciously offered to lead the next round with a US$100m investment into ONE Championship at a valuation in the US$1 billion range. (Of course, they had already completed months of due diligence on our viewership data, financials, leadership team, and market opportunity). I will forever be full of gratitude to Michael, Doug, and Shailendra. #gratitude
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yodchatri/

I am guessing this is a practice of creative accounting on Sequoia's part if true (likely not). They seem to be going for tax writeoffs in investing 100M USD on a company likely not gonna earn more than that in the next 10 years. But tf do I know? If they find a Gomi or something, they could hit it out of the park and be a legit billion dollar company someday.

maybe in guyanese dollars...

 

[vote4pedro]

Sequoia knows how to pick winners. They were early investors in Apple, Google, Oracle, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp. That's just a few. Sequoia is the most successful venture/late stage growth investor ever. They wrote the book on how to invest in promising companies. They are the smart money.

Stop with the "they're doing this for tax write-offs". Investors at this level play to win. Thousands of hours of due diligence is conducted. Sequoia has to make money for their investors (limited partners). The limited partners are high net worth individuals, university endowments, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, charitable foundations.

Sequoia is one investor of ONE Championship. They also have Iconiq, Temasek, GIC (Singapore sovereign wealth fund) and Mission Holdings. Mission Holdings is owned by Saurabh Mittal who was in the mini doc on Chatri. One of the richest men in Singapore.

 

[EndlessCritic]

Sequoia knows how to pick winners. They were early investors in Apple, Google, Oracle, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp. That's just a few. Sequoia is the most successful venture/late stage growth investor ever. They wrote the book on how to invest in promising companies. They are the smart money.

Stop with the "they're doing this for tax write-offs". Investors at this level play to win. Thousands of hours of due diligence is conducted. Sequoia has to make money for their investors (limited partners). The limited partners are high net worth individuals, university endowments, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, charitable foundations.

Sequoia is one investor of ONE Championship. They also have Iconiq, Temasek, GIC (Singapore sovereign wealth fund) and Mission Holdings. Mission Holdings is owned by Saurabh Mittal who was in the mini doc on Chatri. One of the richest men in Singapore.

Yeah, it's called the Uber/WeWork model. Growth at all cost. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

 

[lsa]

https://www.sequoiacap.com/companies/one-championship/

"One Championship is Asia's leading sports media property."
Is that even true?

 

[Yrat]

Sequoia knows how to pick winners. They were early investors in Apple, Google, Oracle, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp. That's just a few. Sequoia is the most successful venture/late stage growth investor ever. They wrote the book on how to invest in promising companies. They are the smart money.

Stop with the "they're doing this for tax write-offs". Investors at this level play to win. Thousands of hours of due diligence is conducted. Sequoia has to make money for their investors (limited partners). The limited partners are high net worth individuals, university endowments, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, charitable foundations.

Sequoia is one investor of ONE Championship. They also have Iconiq, Temasek, GIC (Singapore sovereign wealth fund) and Mission Holdings. Mission Holdings is owned by Saurabh Mittal who was in the mini doc on Chatri. One of the richest men in Singapore.

ONE does not make profits at all, it is like to build up a huge soccer league in South America because the best players are from there and you want to "celibrate" the tradition. Only western companies can beat all asian companies at once due to the fact the western companies are having an another philosphy how to gain profits and that is not to oppress their coworkers, paying shill journalist.

I prefer Apple then Huawei due to that fact i know what i will get, i play Xbox then Nintendo because i know what i will get. Just deal the fact that Chatri is good to pitch his business but there is no way One championship will compete with UFC.

 

[kimocomplex]

these investors are hoping its going to become like the UFC and sell for 4 billion one day, the parallels are easy to see

the problem is that ONE is not growing, the numbers are fudged. If they truly did their research they would see the payola tricks being used, thats why people bring up the tax write off stuff

big potential sure, based in reality, not really

 

[Falconkick]

Sequoia knows how to pick winners. They were early investors in Apple, Google, Oracle, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp. That's just a few. Sequoia is the most successful venture/late stage growth investor ever. They wrote the book on how to invest in promising companies. They are the smart money.

Stop with the "they're doing this for tax write-offs". Investors at this level play to win. Thousands of hours of due diligence is conducted. Sequoia has to make money for their investors (limited partners). The limited partners are high net worth individuals, university endowments, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, charitable foundations.

Sequoia is one investor of ONE Championship. They also have Iconiq, Temasek, GIC (Singapore sovereign wealth fund) and Mission Holdings. Mission Holdings is owned by Saurabh Mittal who was in the mini doc on Chatri. One of the richest men in Singapore.

Dang, thanks for that knowledge.

 

[svmVR2097]

these investors are hoping its going to become like the UFC and sell for 4 billion one day, the parallels are easy to see

the problem is that ONE is not growing, the numbers are fudged. If they truly did their research they would see the payola tricks being used, thats why people bring up the tax write off stuff

big potential sure, based in reality, not really

Their viewership numbers online were about 2 billion more than the UFC

 

[vote4pedro]

Another terrible Bellator event Kongo vs John and MVP vs Cab Driver fuckin sucked

https://www.sequoiacap.com/companies/one-championship/

"One Championship is Asia's leading sports media property."
Is that even true?

It's the leading Asia based sports media property. Obviously there are other properties more popular than ONE in Asia but they aren't Asia based or Asian owned. For example, Premier League is English. NBA is American. F1 is based in the US and London with American owners after the sale a couple years back.

 

[vote4pedro]

these investors are hoping its going to become like the UFC and sell for 4 billion one day, the parallels are easy to see

the problem is that ONE is not growing, the numbers are fudged. If they truly did their research they would see the payola tricks being used, thats why people bring up the tax write off stuff

big potential sure, based in reality, not really

I disagree that it's "not growing". They're still in the very early stages of building a brand. They only got significant investment in 2017 so it's a very young company in a region that is rapidly developing.

Look at the population in Asia across 2 time zones. There's 4 billion people and the population is very young and glued to their smart devices. This is what Sequoia is betting on. It's a massive market. A massive opportunity. That's the type of opportunities investors salivate over. If they wanted to be profitable from day 1, they'd open dry cleaning shops. Problem with those is they're capital intensive and take forever to scale. A media company can scale with relatively little marginal cost.

Will ONE be a massive success story? I don't know. No one really knows but the smart money is behind them. They have a lot of capital to play with and the aforementioned massive market to appeal to. Why couldn't they be the UFC of Asia in 10 years?

 

[Yrat]

I disagree that it's "not growing". They're still in the very early stages of building a brand. They only got significant investment in 2017 so it's a very young company in a region that is rapidly developing.

Look at the population in Asia across 2 time zones. There's 4 billion people and the population is very young and glued to their smart devices. This is what Sequoia is betting on. It's a massive market. A massive opportunity. That's the type of opportunities investors salivate over. If they wanted to be profitable from day 1, they'd open dry cleaning shops. Problem with those is they're capital intensive and take forever to scale. A media company can scale with relatively little marginal cost.

Will ONE be a massive success story? I don't know. No one really knows but the smart money is behind them. They have a lot of capital to play with and the aforementioned massive market to appeal to. Why couldn't they be the UFC of Asia in 10 years?

Early stages? One was founded 2011, next year they have been in MMA-businesss in 10 years.

Even if they have a lot of capital they need to sell. If i get 1m$ from an investor i am not milllionaire, the company has not gained 1m$, the money is for investing.

Aslong chinese and korean fighters will have UFC as a priority there is no way ONE will grow. Especially if UFC will start to execute more events around Asia and having Weili Zhang as a champion. Nobody cares about Angela Lee outside of Singapore.

 

[rob mafia]

Yeah, it's called the Uber/WeWork model. Growth at all cost. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

or generally... it works til it doesn't. spectacularly.

Their viewership numbers online were about 2 billion more than the UFC

and only 1.95B were bots!

 

[Raffen]

Lmao dont they fake YouTube views and comments to pretend they're popular. Truth is no one gives a shit about them. 1 billion my ass.

 

[kimocomplex]

I disagree that it's "not growing". They're still in the very early stages of building a brand. They only got significant investment in 2017 so it's a very young company in a region that is rapidly developing.

Look at the population in Asia across 2 time zones. There's 4 billion people and the population is very young and glued to their smart devices. This is what Sequoia is betting on. It's a massive market. A massive opportunity. That's the type of opportunities investors salivate over. If they wanted to be profitable from day 1, they'd open dry cleaning shops. Problem with those is they're capital intensive and take forever to scale. A media company can scale with relatively little marginal cost.

Will ONE be a massive success story? I don't know. No one really knows but the smart money is behind them. They have a lot of capital to play with and the aforementioned massive market to appeal to. Why couldn't they be the UFC of Asia in 10 years?

Like I said there is a ton of potential, but at what point do you need to start seeing something tangible?
They have had time, the success didnt come, so they started faking it with bogus YouTube views and payola news articles

 

[lukeuidswords]

It's the leading Asia based sports media property.

this is literally meaningless PR babble
who is paying you

 

[skylolow]

I disagree that it's "not growing". They're still in the very early stages of building a brand. They only got significant investment in 2017 so it's a very young company in a region that is rapidly developing.

Look at the population in Asia across 2 time zones. There's 4 billion people and the population is very young and glued to their smart devices. This is what Sequoia is betting on. It's a massive market. A massive opportunity. That's the type of opportunities investors salivate over. If they wanted to be profitable from day 1, they'd open dry cleaning shops. Problem with those is they're capital intensive and take forever to scale. A media company can scale with relatively little marginal cost.

Will ONE be a massive success story? I don't know. No one really knows but the smart money is behind them. They have a lot of capital to play with and the aforementioned massive market to appeal to. Why couldn't they be the UFC of Asia in 10 years?

Very early stages??????????? They been around for almost 10 years now and continue to burn millions more every year, not one year have they seen revenue grow and loses go down. A company that has been running for 10 years with what appears to be 100's of millions backing it over the years at some point should be able to lower the cost of doing business as the infrastructure has been built. At what point do you say there is no end to burning through money?? At some point there at least has to be light at the end of the tunnel of the business becoming self sustained on some level. One isn't anywhere near that after 10 years.

I don't understand why or how these people continue to invest in ONE. What has been leaked out through the years paints a never ending picture of burning money with very little to show for it. They surely aren't spending much of the investments on fighters and with out top fighters you become just another org in world.

I've always said this about that part of the world. The numbers are there to make killing in whatever your selling, the problem is making people value what you sell. That has always been a massive issue in that part of the world. People over there don't pay 100 to 200 bucks a month for media(cable/satellite) or whatever. Many get it for nothing. So TV deals in that part of the world are peanuts compared to European nations and most of the Americas. Sports, live and die by media deals, its as simple that.


Look at an org like Bellator supposedly having revenue around 75 to 100 million. Just based on that you know they are making money finally as some leak information was saying they needed a good 25-30 million or so a year to be sustainable. Now with DAZN apparently gone it will be interesting what will happen long term as they just lost about 30 to 35 million of revenue. Either way they should still be positive with the media deals growth around the world. Investing in Bellator from a numbers standpoint would make sense. I actually won't be surprised and I'd welcome Viacom selling off Bellator as I think it's very poorly run today.

 

[EndlessCritic]

They surely aren't spending much of the investments on fighters

What is this based on?