Yidian Zixun, a China-based news aggregation platform backed by media company Phoenix New Media, has raised $112m from investors including government guidance fund Long De Cheng Zhang Culture Communication, China Money Network reported today.
The round, which also featured two unnamed participants, valued the company at $1bn. It was initially sized at $100m, according to local media reports last month that also described it as a series E round.
Founded in 2010, Yidian Zixun has built a personalised news app that has accumulated 52 million daily active users. Despite being launched two years before Toutiao, a rival currently raising money at a $20bn valuation, it was slower to commercialise its offering.
Phoenix New Media made two investments in Yidian Zixun’s parent company, Particle, in 2014, including an $8.5m deal that gave it an 8.5% stake.
The firm subsequently bought $34.8m of primary and secondary shares, representing 34.8% of Yidian Zixun’s shareholding, in early 2015, taking its stake in the company to 46.9% in the process.
The round comes as Toutiao’s owner, Bytedance, aims to scale its own business. It paid roughly $800m to acquire social video app developer Musical.ly last week, investing $50m in livestreaming platform Live.me at the same time.