China-based online comic art repository Kuaikan Manhua raised $125m from internet group Tencent today, according to a company statement published on Tencent’s WeChat platform.
Founded in 2014, Kuaikan Manhua is a mobile platform with more than 200 million registered users that allows comic artists to upload original work that can be paid for by its users and viewed through the app.
The company’s service has 40 million monthly active users, 50% of which were born after 2000, and has been boosted by the increase in online fan fiction in recent years. Its content has also expanded to areas like visual games, painting and handwriting exhibition.
The funding will go to upgrading Kuaikan Manhua’s AI and big data technologies, in addition to product development and increasing headcount. It intends to leverage Tencent’s artificial intelligence technology and links to the animation industry in order to grow.
Kuaikan Manhua had previously received $177m in a December 2017 series D round led by investment management firm Coatue Management.
Investment manager Tiantu Capital had led the company’s $36m series C in January the same year, participating alongside Toutiao, the news aggregator owned by digital media company Bytedance, as well as Sequoia Capital, GX Capital and Engage Capital, at a $144m valuation.
Tencent invested an undisclosed sum in Kuaikan Manhua in 2012, according to China Money Network, three years before the company secured $14m in series B funding from undisclosed backers.
Image courtesy of Kuaikan Manhua.
