China-based online video news platform Pear Video has secured RMB617m ($98m) in a series A round led by internet company Tencent, China Money Network reported today.
The round also featured another internet company, Baidu. Pear had previously raised a nine-figure renminbi sum from public equity and venture capital firm China Media Capital, and $25m from state-owned media company People.cn in November 2017, according to China Money Network.
Founded in September 2016, Pear creates short-form online videos aimed at mobile users that cover news and current affairs, and which are generally between 30 seconds and three minutes in length.
The videos include captions and accompanying background music. Pear creates about 1,500 such videos a day according to China Money Network. They are published on its app and designed to be shared on social media, and Pear claims they get up to 1 billion clicks each day.
Tencent’s other recent investments in the media sector include animation content producer L² Studio, news aggregation app developer Qu Toutiao and publicly-listed game producer UbiSoft, for which it paid just over $450m for a 5% stake.