New Horizon leads $50m round for China's Chukong Technologies
New Horizon Capital has led a $50 million Series D round of investment in Chukong Technologies, a Chinese mobile game developer. GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital, Steamboat Ventures and Northern Light Venture Capital also participated in the round, which brings the company's total funding to $83 million to date.
Set up in 2010, Beijing-headquartered Chukong develops and publishes first-party mobile games under the Coco (formerly PunchBox) brand. Among its most popular game franchises is Fishing Joy - a deep sea fishing game.
The business - which has offices in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the US - also works as local publishing partner to developers such as Gameloft, Nexon, Disney, Gamevil, and Konami under its CocoaChina brand. The business also sponsors and manages Cocos2D-x, widely used open source 2D game engine used by developers.
Chukong see itself as a leader in the mobile gaming space with 350 million activated downloads and 63 million monthly active users. The company announced it was generating $12 million in monthly gross revenue as of August.
Chukong will use the extra funding to expand its current line of business in mobile game development, publishing and game engine development. It will also put aside capital for R&D and marketing expense in developing its mobile entertainment platform.
"With the proliferation of smartphones across China and countries worldwide, we see a significant opportunity not only to publish polished games and entertainment content but also to provide tools for developers to access emerging mobile platforms and overcome challenges caused by device fragmentation," said Haozhi Chen, CEO of Chukong Technologies, in a statement. "There is a bigger play here than offering discrete mobile game experiences, and that's what we're going after."
The mobile gaming sector in China has been a popular target with VC investors for some time. Recent investment include: Qiming Venture Partner's Series B investment in Cachejoy in August; IDG Capital Partners' Series A investment in Ejoy; and Zennon Capital Partners and New World Strategic Investment's $25 million commitment to NASDAQ-listed China Mobile Games and Entertainment Group.
There have also been a number of notable exits. Earlier this month, Guangzhou-headquartered Forgame Holdings - which was backed by TA Associates, Qiming Venture Partners and Ignition Capital Partners - managed to raise $260 million in its Hong Kong IPO.
Also, in August, Baidu has acquired NetDragon Websoft's 91 Wireless, a Chinese mobile app store and game operator, for $1.85 billion. Early backers included IDG, DT Capital Partners, iD TechVentures and Vertex Venture. The deal represented the latest is a series of strategic acquisitions in China's mobile space.
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