China’s Xiaomi confirms $1.1b funding round
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has raised $1.1 billion further round led by Hong Kong-based All-Stars Investment. DST Advisors, Singapore’s GIC Private, Hopu Investment Management and Yunfeng Capital have also participated.
The new round was completed last week, valuing the four-year-old company at $45 billion - and reportely making it the world's most valuable technology start-up. All-Stars Investment is led by Richard Ji, previously a technology analyst with Morgan Stanley.
"This is an affirmation of Xiaomi's stellar results in four years, and heralds a new phase for the company," said Bin Lin, Xiaomi's co-founder and president, announcing the news via Facebook. "We will strive to continue bringing innovation to everyone, with a goal of producing high-quality, high-performance devices with great user experience."
Xiaomi was founded by Lei Jun, a noted Chinese angel investor, in 2010. Morningside Technologies and Qiming Venture Partners provided $10 million in seed funding alongside the founders. They were joined by IDG Capital Partners in the $41 million Series A round in December 2010. A Series B round worth $92 million came one year later, with Beijing Venture Capital - a venture capital firm backed by Lei - Qualcomm Ventures and Temasek Holdings joining the existing investors.
In June 2012, Yuri Milner of DST led a $216 million third round of funding - valuing the company at $4 billion - with GIC also involved. In 2013 the mobile phone maker secured a Series D round of funding at a valuation of $10 billion.
The Xiaomi ecosystem initially comprised three primary elements: the MI smart phone series; the Android-based MIUI operating system; and instant messaging service MiTalk. The company has sincebranched into other product categories - such as tablet devices, smart TVs and set-top boxes, wearable devices, and other accessories.
The firm booked RMB374.5 million ($56 million) in net profit in 2013, while revenue came to RMB26.6 billion. More than 18 million handsets were sold in China in 2013 while products were also launched in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, India and Indonesia.
Lin said that Xiaomi's next flagship device will be launched this month. The company is expected to unveil a MI5 smart phone, a follow-on version of its MI4 device, at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in the US.
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