China’s Maimai gets $200m Series D

Morningside Ventures, IDG Capital and DCM Ventures all re-upped in the round. Morningside Ventures previously provided Maimai’s $5 million Series A in 2013 and was then joined by IDG in a $20 million Series B round the following year. Both then made additional contributions as DCM led a third funding round, amounting to $75 million, in November of last year.

Maimai said in a statement that the Series D is said to be the largest ever investment globally in the professional networking space. Founder Fan Lin previously said the company was targeting a US IPO – as well as overseas expansion – in 2019.

Maimai was launched in October 2013, several months before LinkedIn entered China through a joint venture with Sequoia Capital and China Broadband Capital. The company has more than 50 million registered users and three billion monthly page views. In addition to maintaining an online network, it organizes recruitment events and branding activities for Chinese corporates.

Advertising is the primary revenue generator, but Maimai – which claimed to have broken even by the end of 2016 – also charges subscription fees and makes money from recruitment services, including the events. It has worked with the likes of Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings, Microsoft, Baidu, Oracle, IBM, CCTV, and Jinri Toutiao.

The company plans to invest RMB1 billion ($146 million) and cooperate with 1,000 partners across various industries with a view to providing more structured career development services.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Technology
• China
• TMT
• DST Advisors
• Morningside Technologies
• DCM-Doll Capital Management
• IDG Capital Partners