Dr. Ouyang Mo: A Witness to the Rise of China's Internet and a "Decacorn Hunter" in the Encryption Field

More than 20 years ago, a "foreigner" was committed to helping Chinese Internet companies obtain overseas venture capital, including Baidu, NetEase, Alibaba, etc., aiming to help these early Chinese Internet companies successfully achieve overseas IPOs.

After more than 20 years, this "foreigner" has spared no effort to promote the connection between the eastern and western cryptocurrency markets, brought many well-known overseas projects to China, and has always been working hard for the compliant development of the encryption industry.

This "foreigner" is called Omer Ozden, and his Chinese name is Ouyang Mo. He is the founder and CEO of RockTree Capital, a well-known investment institution. He is an international partner of ZhenFund, China's top angel investment fund, and a co-founder shareholder and international expansion partner of Ucommune, China's largest co-working company, helping Ucommune enter overseas markets.

At the same time, he is also a well-known Doctor of Laws in the financial field in the United States, and the pioneer of foreign investment channels for Chinese and American technology companies. He attended Facebook's Libra hearings and worked closely with the U.S. Congressional Blockchain Panel and the SEC to help them design new legislation and policies related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Ouyang Mo, Mao Daqing, Xu Xiaoping, Tong Dawei and others at Ucommune, Beijing, 2016

From the early days of his business until now, Ouyang Mo has always had an indissoluble bond with China, an ancient oriental country.

Origin China

In the 1990s, China as a whole was in the early stage of development, and the restructuring of state-owned enterprises triggered a wave of layoffs, which contributed to the early development trend of China's urbanization and accelerated the secondary construction of China's major cities. On the other hand, under the impact of new thoughts and brand-new business models brought about by the reform and opening up, China's Internet technology has entered the embryonic stage of development.

As early as 1991, Ouyang Mo came to China for the first time and co-founded a computer company with his friends in Taipei, China. Later, due to the launch of Apple's Macintosh, Ouyang Mo's company closed down because it lost its market competitiveness. In 1996, while studying for a doctorate in law in the United States, Mr. Ouyang Mo was introduced to Beijing by Yu Minhong and Xu Xiaoping, and became an international lawyer of New Oriental Education Group in Zhongguancun.

Xu Xiaoping, Ouyang Mo and the New Oriental team, Beijing, 1997

In the early stage of China's development at the end of the last century, there were not many foreigners who came to China to seek opportunities, and Ouyang Mo can be regarded as the first batch of foreigners' Chinese entrepreneurs. Xu Xiaoping, who invited Ouyang Mo to China, also ridiculed Ouyang Mo as a "new species", commonly known as "ocean turtle".

It was also this China entrepreneurial trip that made Ouyang Mo the most important person in the early development of China's Internet. He witnessed and helped the take-off of China's Internet industry, and forged an indissoluble bond with China and China's early Internet technology companies .

In China in the 1990s, when domestic private enterprises sought financing overseas, it was often difficult due to the lack of legal support. In 2000, Mr. Ouyang Mo joined Morrison & Foerster Law Firm, one of the largest law firms in Silicon Valley. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) jointly researched and invented the "VIE structure" of foreign investment and IPO of Chinese enterprises. He was one of the first lawyers in China for international technology venture capital investment and listing transactions. He later became a partner at Baker & McKenzie in New York, then the largest law firm in the world (now the second largest) with offices in 45 countries. He leads the securities trading team in Manhattan, New York, and works closely with Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong offices on project private equity financing, listing and government securities compliance matters.

Dr. Ouyang Mo on China Global Television

The VIE framework is iable Interest Entities, literally translated as "variable interest entities", but it is generally called "agreement control" in China. The specific explanation is: "The so-called VIE structure is a contractual arrangement under Chinese law that enables foreign investment companies to Controlling the operations of domestic companies without a direct equity relationship, thereby incorporating the financial data of domestic companies into the financial statements of foreign investment companies in accordance with international accounting standards." With the help of this VIE structure, Chinese Internet companies can not only obtain foreign exchange investment from overseas investors, successfully list overseas, but also engage in fields that are prohibited or restricted by Chinese laws, such as Internet information services, tourism, education, entertainment, etc.

After the introduction of the framework, it changed the difficulty of overseas financing for Chinese private enterprises, provided a legal basis for Chinese enterprises to raise funds in major capital markets such as Japan, the United States, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom, and allowed Internet technology to play a role in China's modernization. important value. The development of China's leading Internet giants such as Baidu, NetEase, and Alibaba today all benefited from the value of this structure back then.

After launching the VIE framework, Ouyangmo also began to help Chinese Internet companies make venture capital overseas. Finally, after 2000, Ouyangmo successfully promoted and participated in the financing and IPO of companies including NetEase, Baidu, and Alibaba in overseas markets.

Through the early practice of China's Internet industry, Ouyang Mo summed up an experience. He said that "the law shows the same "productivity" as technology. Today, Ouyang Mo has always taken this as his creed. Ouyang Mo is not only a witness to the development of China's Internet field, but also one of the main promoters.

"In blockchain, law is technology"

The early work experience in China also established Ouyang Mo's long-term work direction. For a long time since then, Ouyang Mo's work has always focused on promoting the development of emerging technologies in the direction of compliance. With the rise of the blockchain concept in 2017, Ouyang Mo once again devoted himself to this field, committed to promoting the implementation and compliance of blockchain and encryption industry regulations.

Ouyang Mo has said in many interviews that "in the blockchain, law is technology."

He believes that many projects only focus on computer technology and ignore laws and government supervision, which is not conducive to the long-term development of the industry. After its involvement in the blockchain field, RockTree Capital submitted the "Practical Token Guidelines" to the US, Canadian, and Swiss regulators in 2018, and submitted the "Securities Guidelines" to the US Congress and the US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2019. Type Token Guide”. During the same period, Ouyang Mo also participated in the formulation of regulations and policies for the encryption industry by the MAS of Singapore and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand.

IBM Deloitte and Dr. Ouyang Mo at Congressional meeting

"The status quo of the blockchain industry is very similar to the Internet wave I experienced in China - as a brand new industry, regulations and policies are not clear. Yes, so my mission has never changed, I hope to connect North America and Greater China in a legal and compliant way, and help high-quality companies and projects develop in the blockchain industry in the long run." In an interview a few years ago, Ouyang Mo expressed his views on the encryption field and the purpose of going deep into the blockchain industry.

On June 18, 2020, Facebook officially released the white paper for the Libra stablecoin, which has dominated global news headlines for months. For this reason, the U.S. Congress held Libra hearings twice in July and October of the same year. David Marcus, director of Calibra, the Libra wallet company established by Facebook, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg attended the hearings one after another. As Facebook's former legal counsel, Ouyang Mo also attended the two hearings and expressed his views in the closed-door meeting after the hearings.

Dr. Ouyang Mo at the LIBRA hearing on October 23, 2019

At the Facebook hearing, Congress invited Ouyang Mo's team to return to Washington, DC to work closely with the US Congressional Blockchain Group and the SEC. Ouyang Mo's team has since participated in the SEC's new legislation and policy formulation on blockchain and cryptocurrency. As a legal expert, Ouyang Mo has the right to speak and authority in the field of encryption regulations.

Congressional Blockchain Caucus Co-Chairs, Republican Tom Emmer (Tom Emmer) and Dr. Ouyang Mo

As one of the promoters of encryption compliance, when he was invited to participate in the Hong Kong Web3 Summit this year, he believed that it was wise for Hong Kong to clarify the encryption policy. Affection. Looking back at those years, Ouyang Mo, as the first generation of foreigner Chinese entrepreneurs, has always had an indissoluble bond with the land of China.

After a meeting of the Hong Kong Web3 Summit in April this year ended, such a scene happened in a certain corner of the venue. A group of well-known encryption VC founders from China gathered together "scatteredly" and rushed to the crowd. Ouyang Mo in the middle expressed his gratitude with a very respectful tone and eyes. Obviously, Ouyang Mo is of great significance to this group of Chinese venture capitalists, and in private, this group of Chinese venture capitalists prefer to call him the nickname "Decacorn Hunter", which shows his status in the encryption industry It can be seen.

The "Decacorn Hunter" in the encryption field

Through years of hard work in the Chinese market, Ouyang Mo has his own unique insights into the investment in the encryption field. He is known as the "Decacorn Hunter" and is well-known in the global cryptocurrency investment industry. It is called "Decacorn Hunter" mainly because RockTree Capital, led by Ouyang Mo, focuses on discovering and investing in potential companies with a market value of more than 10 billion US dollars. In his own words, he "likes to find ten-cornered beasts— The decacorns of the future".

Ouyang Mo said, "In the era of Web 2.0, people are looking for unicorns, but there are already many unicorns on the market. RockTree Capital will not make any gambling-style investments, but will focus on investing in high-quality projects and Spend a lot of time and energy helping them grow and develop. We are always looking for decacorn projects that have the potential to grow to a market value of $10 billion or more in the future, which requires long-term thinking, not short-term."

Adhering to this philosophy, Ouyang Mo and his RockTree Capital successfully participated in the early investment of the most famous Web 3.0 companies today, including ChainLink (LINK), The Graph (GRT), dYdX (DYDX), REN (REN), Fantom (FTM) , Maple Finance (MPL), Pocket Network (POKT), etc. Under the leadership of Ouyang Mo, RockTree Capital has also become one of the industry pioneers under the Web3 wave, connecting top companies and businesses in the western and eastern cryptocurrency markets, and bringing many well-known overseas projects to China.

In recent years, Ouyang Mo’s RockTree Capital has also helped some leading blockchain projects to carry out transaction execution, overseas financing, global expansion and other development layouts. With its help, many Web3 entrepreneurs have obtained financing and better development opportunities , Venture capitalists have also achieved good results in investment gains.

So the scene mentioned above also happened. After the meeting ended, a group of Chinese encryption venture capitalists who had been helped by Ouyang Mo came to express their gratitude to Ouyang Mo.

It can be seen that whether as an entrepreneur, a lawyer, or an investor, Ouyang Mo is successful.

In fact, Ouyang Mo himself is also a very "down-to-earth" China hand. He is not only humorous, approachable, but also very hospitable. Perhaps this is also a kind of personality charm that Ouyang Mo exudes as a successful person.

"China Hands" Ouyang Mo

After working in China for many years, Ouyang Mo has achieved financial freedom. This "foreigner" with a big nose who is very "down-to-earth" in doing business in China has not only cooperated with well-known investors such as Xu Xiaoping, Yu Minhong, Mao Daqing, Liu Xiaoguang, Liu Shuang, etc. Becoming like-minded friends, Ouyang Mo also married a Chinese wife, fulfilling a foreigner's Chinese dream.

Communicate with Ouyang Mo, and you will find that he is familiar with Chinese fashion culture, and he can master the very local and popular culture of "down-to-earth and bragging". He may be one of the few people who is well versed in the development of China's new economy A foreigner is a complete China hand. A "new species" like Ouyang Mo is not only well versed in the similarities and differences of Chinese and Western cultures and business, but also able to freely switch between the two cultures. In the United States, Ouyang Mo is an American. When he comes to China, he becomes a Chinese. .

People who have been in contact with Ouyang Mo all said that this person is very "down to earth", because he often shares embarrassing things that happen to him with others without hesitation.

In the 1990s, when I started my business in Zhongguancun, although Beijing was the capital, the overall facilities and environment were very simple, which was very different from the current international metropolis with many high-rise buildings and heavy traffic. At that time, the entrance of Ouyang Mo's office was still a dirt road. One day, Ouyang Mo walked out of the gate wearing a newly bought suit, and fell into a dark well without a well cover after walking a few steps. Fortunately, the well was not deep, but he couldn't come up, and the person who saw him fall from the upstairs office window immediately went downstairs to pull him up, Ouyang Mo always smiled wryly when he mentioned this.

Although more than 20 years have passed since this incident, Ouyang Mo is still deeply impressed. He also said that as a foreigner, Ouyang Mo has witnessed the rapid development and great changes of China's innovative enterprises in the past 20 years. It is also filled with emotion.

Another anecdote that also happened to Ouyang Mo also made him understand the Chinese baijiu culture in depth, and it became his way of hospitality.

Once, when Xu Xiaoping and Ouyang Mo had a dinner party, Xu Xiaoping wanted to entertain Ouyang Mo with baijiu, but he thought that Chinese baijiu was not as strong as foreign wine, so he insisted on drinking foreign wine. The two made a bet that if the baijiu could be ignited in a spoon, they would drink baijiu, otherwise they would change to foreign wine. After Xu Xiaoping ignited the baijiu in the spoon, Ouyang was dumbfounded and began to drink Chinese baijiu. Afterwards, after he had a deep understanding of Chinese baijiu culture, he also began to imitate the traditional Chinese etiquette. Whenever a guest came to visit, he would use Moutai to entertain the guest to show the highest hospitality.

**Ouyang Mo is one of the typical representatives of successful people in the business field. His success is not only due to his natural market acumen, which was rooted in the budding period of China's Internet development, but also from the lawyer's professionalism and depth of policy And just right control. Based on this, after helping China's early Internet businesses to complete their rise through their own efforts, they can learn valuable experience and achieve win-win cooperation. After achieving great success in the Web2 world, Ouyang Mo brought his valuable experience to the field of crypto venture capital, not only actively promoting compliance to seek longer-term development, but also taking long-term investors as the value, and looking forward to the next ten years of planning A "decacorn". **

**In the long history of the development of the encryption world, we can always see an experienced "decacorn hunter", who is still quietly watching and waiting in the grass, ready to "snipe" at any time new prey. **