Meituan to buy Chinese AGI player Light Year
Listed Chinese consumer technology platform Meituan has agreed to acquire 100% of Light Year, a VC-backed local artificial general intelligence (AGI) business, for USD 284.3m.
Meituan will pay USD 233.7m of cash for Light Year's offshore assets and assume liabilities of CNY 367m (USD 50.6m) to cover the onshore assets, in addition to paying CNY 1.
The proceeds will go to existing shareholders in the company. HongShan, previously known as Sequoia Capital China, while Qimai, an investment company wholly owned by Meituan’s founder Xing Wang, will get USD 5m. The remaining USD 200m will be distributed among other investors, according to a statement.
The price was based on Light Year’s aggregate net cash position of USD 285m, indicating that no premium was factored into the deal. Existing investors will receive amounts equal to what they put in.
Light Year was established earlier this year by Huiwen Wang, co-founder of Meituan. In February, Wang announced via WeChat Circle that he would form an AGI company benchmarked against OpenAI - the business behind the large language models that underpin ChatGPT - and contribute USD50m of his own money to the project.
Local media reported that Light Year raised a Series A earlier this year from investors including Tencent Holdings, 5Y Capital, and Source Code Capital.
Huiwen Wang has recently run into health problems. Meituan announced earlier this week that he had tendered his resignation as a non-executive director of the company, citing "personal health reasons”.
Huiwen Wang and Xing Wang were classmates at Tsinghua University, even sharing a dorm room. They went on to establish several social-media startups.
More on Greater China
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.