Beijing-based Kuaikan World, which runs a comic app and a community for comic fans, announced via its WeChat channel on Tuesday that it has received an investment of USD 125 million from Tencent. The company did not disclose its current valuation.
Tencent Investment, the investment arm of Tencent, made the same announcement on its WeChat channel.
Kuaikan’s app, which is called Kuaikan Comics, has acquired more than 200 million users since it was set up in 2014. Among them, 40 million are monthly active users and half of its users were born in the 2000s, said Kuaikan World. The startup added that its app, which hosts comics by Chinese authors, is the most popular app among those born in the 2000s, according to research conducted by QuestMobile.
The new funds will be used to support authors on its platform by monetizing their creations. Kuaikan Comics hosts nearly 2,000 works from 1,000 or so comic creators and more than 200 institutional content providers, according to its website.
In addition to the investment, Kuaikan World and Tencent will also cooperate at the business level in the areas of user traffic and intellectual property, said Chen An’ni, the founder of Kuaikan.
She added that her company will still run independently, dismissing speculations that Kuaikan has been acquired by Tencent.
Kuaikan closed its USD 177 million Series D financing round in December 2017 in what was then the largest fundraising deal in China’s comics industry, according to the company’s website.
