Temasek leads $40m Series B extension for China's Well-Link
Temasek Holdings has led a USD 40m Series B extension for Well-Link Technologies, a China-based provider of real-time cloud rendering solutions for game developers.
Existing investors Future Capital and CDH Investments also took part. Founded in 2019, Well-Link has closed five funding rounds in the last three years. Most recently, Future Capital led a CNY 400m (USD 56m) Series B in December, supported by Shunwei Capital, Xiaomi, CDH, and video game company miHoYo.
Well-Link made its name by producing a cloud version of miHoYo’s popular game Genshin Impact. This allows users who don't have high-performance computers or other relevant devices to enjoy the full gaming experience. Last month, the start-up unveiled a movie-like cloud-native game demo The Grass of Genesis, which showcases Ark, a next-generation software architecture.
Meanwhile, Well-Link and Hixi Media Group will jointly promote Chuncao, the main character in The Grass of Genesis. He is described as China's first digital actor. The goal of the partnership is to find new paths to commercialisation for the digital human industry.
The new funding will be used to improve software and hardware integration and real-time cloud rendering capabilities, as well as to accelerate the construction of next-generation computing and rendering architecture. Well-Link is exploring opportunities in virtual reality and artificial reality technology with a view to facilitating cloud-based content creation and building the future digital world.
The company claims that the evolution from cloud gaming to real-time cloud rendering signals the onset of the graphics-as-a-service (GaaS) age. Cloud gaming is expected to become a key growth driver for the broader entertainment industry with the emergence of 5G infrastructure and breakthroughs in graphics and image processing.
Well-Link is looking to play an enabling role in this process. It established a dedicated server - called Siland - which is said to help business partners reduce rendering costs by up to 25%.
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