Chinese Sports Platform Hupu Gets $182 Million Pre-IPO Financing From Bytedance

ABOUT US

CX Tech is Caixin Global's real-time tech news portal, featuring 24-hour news, short-form analysis, and roundups from business and tech media in China.

TRENDING: China’s Robotics Industry Index Rises 6.4%; WeChat Opens AI Agent Ecosystem for Food Orders and Flight Bookings; Pentagon Adds Alibaba, Baidu, BYD and Nio to Chinese Military-Linked List

LATEST: China Targets 10,000 Humanoid Robots in Commercial Use by End-2026; Chinese Tech Insiders Cash Out After AI Stock Rally; Pentagon Adds Alibaba, Baidu, BYD and Nio to Chinese Military-Linked List; WeChat Opens AI Agent Ecosystem for Food Orders and Flight Bookings; China’s Robotics Industry Index Rises 6.4%; Tencent Cloud Expands AI Agent Push as Yuanbao Races to Catch Rivals; Tencent Opens WeChat to Handset Makers’ AI Assistants; China Launches New Reusable Rocket to Accelerate Satellite Deployment; DJI, Insta360 Lock Horns in Camera Pricing Standoff; Tencent Gains $53 Billion in Value on Reports of WeChat AI Agents; Chinese Chipmaker YMTC Claims 13% of $46 Billion Global NAND Market; China’s Robotics Funding Frenzy Picks Up; In Depth: China Arms Itself With New Legal Tools to Scruntinize Overseas Investment; Zhipu Seeks $2.2 Billion Shanghai Listing to Fuel AI Expansion; In Depth: Huawei’s Bid to Rewrite the Rules of Chip Scaling; Humanoid Robot Maker Unitree Advances Toward $618 Million Shanghai IPO; MiniMax Eyes Shanghai Listing as China AI Firms Chase Capital; China AI Developer Zhipu Hits Record $112 Billion Valuation; Luxshare Gets Lenient Antitrust Fine Over Wingtech Deal; Flying-Car Startup Volant Raises $147 Million Ahead of Potential IPO

By Liu Shuangshuang and Denise Jia / Jun 07, 2019 04:41 AM / Business & Tech

Photo: VCG

Leading Chinese sports commentary and news platform Hupu said Thursday that it raised 1.26 billion yuan ($182 million) from Bytedance in advance of its planned initial public offering (IPO).

The deal, which will give Bytedance a 30% stake in Hupu, valued the company at 7.7 billion yuan.

Hupu’s founder and Chairman Cheng Hang remains the company’s controlling shareholder, and Hupu is still pursuing an IPO, the company told Caixin.

Founded in 2007, Hupu provides sports events marketing and management as well as e-commerce and gaming cooperation. It owns the sports site Hupu.com and a retail site for trending sports gear, Shihuo.cn. More than 30 million users had registered on its websites and apps as of March.

Hupu and Bytedance, a Beijing-based internet technology company, have collaborated in the past. After Bytedance became an official global partner of the National Basketball Association (NBA) last year, the two companies co-produced real-time NBA game videos and news.

Bytedance, which is also behind popular news aggregator Jinri Toutiao and video platform TikTok, said it will work with Hupu on content creation and service cooperation.

Hupu first submitted its IPO prospectus in 2015, planning to raise 420 million yuan, but its application was rejected by the securities regulator in 2017. The company filed new IPO paperwork in March.

Share this article

Open WeChat and scan the QR code