Private equity veteran Guy Hands used to sing the Frank Sinatra song My Way when he completed a leveraged buyout, but if he had been a user of China-based Duowan he could have been joined in his karaoke renditions by 190 million others rather than other members in his firm, Terra Firma Capital Partners.
Attracted by its YY service, Duowan has been adding about 10 million users per month, according to insiders, for its service of voice tools (including karaoke) and online games.
Its success led to a $100m investment series D round at the start of the year, led by US-based hedge fund Tiger Global Management, which followed previous corporate venturing backing.
Steamboat Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of US-based media company Disney, had been an investor in Duowan’s first two institutional rounds.
Including $1m in seed capital from angel investor and former Kingsoft chief executive Lei Jun, Duowan has raised more than $128m since its launch in April 2005 by serial entrepreneur Li Xueling.
Last month, Duowan also hired Eric He as its chief financialofficerfrom the same role at listed games developer Giant Interactive Group ahead of what insid-ers expected to be an initial public offering.