幾年前，中國曾經流行著這樣一個笑話：如果有家美國初創公司出了一個很棒的創意，谷歌可能會把它買下。如果某家中國初創公司出了一個很棒的創意，騰訊可能會把它抄過來。

當吳皓被這家中國社交媒體和網絡游戲巨頭找上門來時，他的腦海里馬上浮現出了上面這則笑話。吳皓創立的網上外賣網上訂餐平臺零號線正在籌集資金，騰訊想要入股。這位32歲的南京創業者說：“起初我們覺得騰訊居心叵測。”吳皓擔心，他們公司那些身穿黃色制服，騎著電動車穿行在城市大街小巷的送貨員，會被這家擁有130億收入的網絡巨頭吸收并抄襲。

但騰訊的風險投資團隊不愿放棄。他們與吳皓進行了5次會面，和他在零號線加盟餐廳一起用餐。他們告訴吳皓，騰訊了解這種“從線上到線下”的生態體系，即通過應用，讓消費者購買真實世界的商品和服務。騰訊已經投資了類似的公司，比如號稱中國版Yelp的大眾點評網。他們還向吳皓保證了發展前景，騰訊也許會讓零號線直接面對潛在的5億新顧客，即騰訊龐大的微信用戶。

而騰訊沒有必要告訴吳皓的是：他們投資初創公司的速度幾乎超過了全球所有其他公司。如果吳皓同意的話，零號線將會成為2014年騰訊投資的近50家公司之一。騰訊通常不會徑直收購這些公司，但表示將斥巨資支持它們跳躍式發展。

吳皓不想放棄這個機會。今年1月，零號線在融資中收到了由騰訊為首的投資者提供的3000萬美元資本。作為回報，騰訊得到了一個將近100萬零號線用戶納入該公司網上支付系統的機會，而這正是騰訊應對中國迅速升級的互聯網戰爭的核心戰略要素。

中國最大的科技公司如今都處于不確定的轉型期。三大互聯網巨頭——搜索領域的百度、電子商務領域的阿里巴巴和社交領域的騰訊，被合稱為BAT——借助自己的核心業務，建立了利潤豐厚，價值數十億美元的帝國。（2014年，百度的收入為80億美元，阿里巴巴的收入為123億美元，這兩家公司和騰訊一樣，都有資格進入美國《財富》500強公司的行列，但還不足以進入全球《財富》500強。）不過，隨著三巨頭的腳步開始放緩，他們轉入了一種新的模式，開始斥資數十億美元進行創投和收購，借此擴大影響范圍，并增加收入。在中國初創公司中擔任企業家兼投資者的理查德·羅賓遜如此描述三巨頭的行為：“之前的情況是‘我們靠自己就能變得更好’，但現在如果繼續遵循這種思路，那就意味著你要落后了。”

在這次熱潮中，沒有哪家公司表現得比騰訊更加積極。根據另類投資數據公司Preqin的數據，在去年中國金額最大的10起科技類風投交易中，騰訊參與其中的4起，該公司在去年達成48項交易，總金額達63億美元。從這個尺度來看，騰訊在風險投資領域已經超過了阿里巴巴、百度、甚至谷歌。這種熱情在今年依舊不減：截至4月，騰訊又達成40億美元的交易。

A joke was making the rounds a few years ago in China: If a U.S. startup had a great idea, Google might buy it. If a Chinese startup had a great idea, Tencent might copy it.

That last thought crept into Wu Hao’s mind late last year when Tencent, China’s social media and online games giant, came calling. Wu’s food delivery startup, Line0, was raising money, and Tencent wanted a stake. “At first we were concerned they had ulterior motives,” says Wu, an energetic 32-year-old who started his business in China’s old capital, Nanjing. Wu was worried that his yellow-uniformed deliverymen, who jet across China’s cities on electric scooters, would be absorbed and copied by a web giant with $13 billion in revenue.

But Tencent’s venture capital team pitched Wu hard. They met with him five times, grabbing dinner with him at restaurants on the Line0 system. They told Wu that Tencent understood the ecosystem of “online to offline” companies like Line0—companies whose apps enable consumers to buy real-world goods and services. They had already invested in similar companies like Dianping, the Chinese equivalent of Yelp. They also reassured him about the future, when Tencent might propel Line0 in front of a half-billion potential new customers—the users of Tencent’s gargantuan social network, WeChat.

What Tencent didn’t need to tell Wu was that it was investing in startups faster than almost anyone else in the world. If Wu said yes, Line0 would join four dozen companies Tencent backed in 2014. Tencent didn’t generally buy companies outright, but it had shown it would bolster them with very big checks.

Wu didn’t want to miss his shot. In January, Line0 received $30 million in a financing round led by Tencent. In return Tencent got the chance to add Line0’s nearly 1 million users to its online payment network—the central element of the company’s battle plan in China’s fast-evolving Internet wars.

China’s biggest tech companies are in the middle of an uncertain transition. The country’s three Internet giants—Baidu BIDU 1.65% in search, Alibaba BABA 1.95% in e-commerce, and Tencent TCEHY -1.44% in social networking, known collectively as BAT—each became a profitable, multibillion-dollar empire on the strength of its core business. (Baidu had $8 billion in revenue in 2014, and Alibaba $12.3 billion—making both, like Tencent, big enough for the Fortune 500, though not the Global 500.) But as their growth has slowed, the Big Three have shifted into a new mode, spending billions on venture funding and acquisitions that could help them further expand their reach and their revenue. “Before it was, ‘We can build it better ourselves,’?” says Richard Robinson, a China-based entrepreneur and investor in startups, describing the BAT’s attitudes. “But now that means you’re behind.”

In this land rush no company has been more aggressive than Tencent. Last year the company invested in four of China’s 10 largest tech venture deals and took part in a total of 48 deals worth $6.3 billion, according to Preqin, an alternative-assets data company; by that measure, Tencent was a bigger venture capital player than Alibaba or Baidu or, for that matter, Google. The deluge continued this year: Through April, Tencent had joined another $4 billion worth of deals.

不過，同樣令人驚訝的是，騰訊也積極地與零號線這樣的公司進行小額交易，向旅行社和清潔服務公司這類中小型企業投入百萬級別的資金。這有點像中國在南海建立島礁以擴張領土的方式：它看起來顯得不切實際，但如果從整個競爭圖景和長期的利害關系來考量，則另有一番意味。

騰訊以回避媒體而著稱，他們多次拒絕了《財富》采訪公司高管的請求。不過通過與騰訊投資的十余家公司的對話，以及與前騰訊員工、顧問和關注該公司的分析師的交流，我們發現了他們的一個明確戰略：讓財付通統治網絡金融領域，借以擴張騰訊的勢力版圖。（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

審校：任文科

以上內容節選自《財富》雜志8月刊，欲查看英文全文請點擊此處。

Just as striking, however, is Tencent’s eagerness to make small deals like the Line0 play, investing seven-figure sums in modest ventures like travel agencies and cleaning services. It’s a bit like China’s effort to expand its territory by building islands atop tiny reefs in the South China Sea: It can look quixotic, until you consider the big picture and the long-term stakes.

Known for avoiding the press, Tencent declined Fortune’s repeated requests for interviews with executives. But in conversations with more than a dozen companies Tencent has backed, and with former Tencent employees, consultants, and analysts who follow the company, a clear strategy emerges: a quest to make Tenpay, and by extension Tencent, dominant in online finance.