Google invests in VC-backed Chinese start-up Mobvoi

This is the first direct investment made by Google in a Chinese business after the US player abandoned its domestic search engine service in China in 2010 over censorship concerns. Mobvoi's management team retains control in the company.

Mobvoi was founded in 2012 by Zhifei Li, a former research scientist at Google. The start-up's best known product is Chumen Wenwen, which offers searches covering catering, group-buying, navigation, weather, tourism and public transport via WeChat and an Android app. Its search technology is also embedded in apps developed by the likes of Dianping, AutoNavi and Dangdang.

Earlier this year, Mobvoi struck a partnership with Google to provide search and speech recognition for Android Wear, the Google operating system for wearable devices, in China.

The Chinese start-up raised nearly $10 million in a Series B round last year led by SIG. Sequoia Capital and ZhenFund, which provided the Series A round in 2010, also participated. In line with the fundraising, the company hired Mike Lei, formerly a research scientist with Google's voice recognition unit, as CTO.

The new capital will enable the company to further enhance its core artificial intelligence (AR) technologies, develop new consumer products empowered by AR, as well as to explore robotics technologies. The funding will be also used for staffing and overseas expansions.

In October last year, Google Capital - a $300 million growth-stage corporate VC fund - made its first investment in China by co-leading a $38 million Series C round for InnoLight Technology, a Suzhou-based optical transceiver maker, alongside Lightspeed China Partners.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Greater China
• Technology
• Expansion
• Venture
• China
• Google
• Technology
• USA
• Growth capital
• Venture