M17 Entertainment gets $40m Series A round
M17 Entertainment, a Taiwan and Singapore-based media streaming company, has raised a $40 million Series A funding round led by Japan’s Infinity Venture Partners.
Additional participation came from a mix of Singaporean and Japanese VCs, including Yahoo Japan, Golden Summit Capital, Vertex Ventures and Majuven. South Korean’s KTB Ventures also contributed via its KTB China Synergy Fund.
The capital will be used to expand the company’s Asian footprint, including moves into Japan, Indonesia, and Hong Kong. It will also support talent sourcing aimed at growing the company’s media content library. Recent activity in this area includes the establishment of a partnership with media streaming and talent agency services company KKBox.
“Working together with Asia’s largest music platform KKBox, not only are we bringing music and instant messaging together, we hope to create more chances of exposure for passionate music makers,” Joseph Phua, M17’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.
M17 was formed earlier this year through the merger of Singapore dating app operator Paktor and Taiwan live streaming company 17 Media. According to an April release, Paktor is the top dating platform in Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea, while 17 Media is the leading live streaming app in Taiwan and Hong Kong with some 50,000 active streaming broadcasters as users. The merged company’s portfolio of services claims a combined app user base of 50 million.
Operations of the combined company encompass eight offices across Asia and a staff of about 200. Annualized revenue of the Paktor and 17 Media teams for the six months to April are said to have improved tenfold to $100 million. Regional expansion plans as an enlarged group are projected to increase this figure to $200 million by the end of the year.
Previous investment includes a $32.5 million round for Paktor last year led by K2 Global. Other Paktor backers have included Yahoo Japan, Vertex, Global Grand Leisure, Golden Equator Capital, Sebrina Holdings Venture Capital, Convergence Ventures and MNC Media Group.
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