US-listed search engine group Google has sold one of its first corporate venturing investments to China-based social networking company Tencent.
Tencent has bought Comsenz, which has its Discuz! discussion forum software used by more than 1.4 million websites, for reportedly more than $60m.
Tencent, which is part-owned by South Africa media group Naspers’ MIH corporate venturing division, will seek to link accounts from Discuz! to its instant messaging service QQ.
Google and two US venture capital firms, Sequoia Capital and Morningside Ventures, had reportedly invested more than $10m in Comsenz over the past two years. Google, which also owns stakes in Chinese video site Xunlei and music service Top100, had invested $1m of the total, according to news provider PaidContent.org in 2008, a year before the firm set up its $100m per year corporate venturing division, Google Ventures.