China's Snowball Finance raises $120m
Snowball Finance, a Chinese online financial information platform with wealth management ambitions, has raised $120 million Series E from Orchid Asia.
The company previously raised a $120 million Series D led by Ant Group in 2018. This followed a $40 million commitment from social networking platform Renren and 5Y Capital in 2014 and a $10 million Series B from 5Y and Sequoia Capital China a year earlier. Sequoia led the Series A in 2011.
Snowball was founded in 2010 by Simon Fang, former editor-in-chief at NetEase, a Chinese online services business that offers a combination of news and information content, email and messaging, and games. Snowball started out as an online community that allowed individual investors to exchange information on US, Hong Kong and Chinese equities, as well as bonds, mutual funds, and trust products.
It then established a full-chain service covering deal evaluation, transactions, and post-investment monitoring. There is a one-click function built into the app that enables users to buy and sell stock. However, Orchid was primarily attracted by the company's quality content, rather than its role as a broker.
"Snowball has an excellent reputation and user stickiness, building up strong barriers to entry in community and content construction. We believe it will continue to achieve breakthroughs in these areas and further expand its influence among new middle-class users, especially the younger generation," said Jipei Li, a managing director at Orchid. "It will create more unique value in matching people and assets and promoting online investment."
Nan Li, co-founder and CEO of Snowball, added that the company wants to become a trusted online wealth management platform. "The growth of Snowball has been accompanied by the rapid development of China’s capital markets and more outstanding domestic companies moving towards IPOs," Li said.
UBS acted as the financial advisor for Snowball’s Series D round.
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