Internet group Tencent has acquired iFlix, a Malaysia-based entertainment service provider backed by corporates including Hearst, JTBC, Liberty Global, MNC, PLDT, Sky, Yoshimoto Kogyo and Zain, Variety reported on Wednesday.
Sources privy to the deal said Tencent is paying “several tens of millions of dollars” to complete the purchase of iFlix through a special-purpose entity.
Founded in 2014 by internet company Catcha Group, iFlix runs an online streaming platform that targets audiences in South and Southeast Asia, providing localised content for each country.
The company intended to float in Australia at a $1bn valuation according to Reuters, but abandoned the plan in February 2020. It raised $348m in funding across seven rounds and had booked a total of $379m of losses.
A Tencent spokesperson told Variety: “This is in line with our strategy to expand our international streaming platform, WeTV, across Southeast Asia and provide users with international, local and original high-quality content in a wide range of genres and languages.”
The company secured more than $50m in a July 2019 round led by investment and financial services group Fidelity International that included entertainment group Yoshimoto Kogyo and media companies Media Nusantara Citra (MNC), JTBC, Sky, Hearst, Evolution Media Capital (EMC) and founders of Catcha Group.
MNC invested an undisclosed amount in iFlix in May 2019, the month after Yoshimoto did the same. Sports streaming platform Kwesé had reportedly also provided an undisclosed sum for the company earlier in the year.
Hearst led a $133m round for iFlix in August 2017 that also featured Catcha, EMC, Sky, media group Liberty Global, telecommunications firm Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), EDBI, Jungle Ventures and financial services firm DBS’s customers.
The company had received $90m in March 2017 from Catcha, EMC, Liberty Global and Sky as well as telecoms company Zain and an undisclosed investment manager. Sky had also supplied $45m the year before.
Catcha and PLDT had previously co-led a $30m round for iFlix in 2015 that was also backed by EMC, the deal coming in the wake of a reported $10m in earlier funding.
