China-based information and social media platform Baike.com has been acquired by one of its existing shareholders, digital media company ByteDance, for an undisclosed amount, KrAsia reported today, citing local media reports.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The transaction was completed on August 27, just two weeks after ByteDance paid an undisclosed amount for a 22.2% stake in Baike.
Founded in 2005 as Hudong, Baike has built a collaborative online encyclopaedia that uses a proprietary version of the wiki engine – which powers websites such as Wikipedia – and integrates a range of social media features such as forums and fan groups.
Baike competes with a similar offering provided by internet group Baidu that closely integrates with its search engine.
ByteDance is expected to use the acquisition to challenge Baidu’s dominance in the mobile search space, having already launched a mobile-only search portal called Toutiao Search last month.
Baike reportedly closed a $50m series C round in 2012 backed by unnamed affiliates of investment platform Xpert Financial, adding to $15.6m of funding provided by unnamed backers in 2011.
DrpaerDragon, the joint venture formed by venture capital firms DFJ and DragonVenture formerly known as DFJ DragonFund had reportedly supplied a total of $30m for the company across two rounds in 2006 and 2009.
