Yang Lai
Mobile reading company ZhangYue announced its completion of initial financing recently of nearly USD 100 million, which boosts its valuation to almost USD one billion. Guo Jin Capital and Alpha Animation are the investors, NetEase reported on Monday.
After many years of expertise in mobile reading, Zhangyue started to expand in 2015. Apart from putting forward its i-reader, it cooperated with animation companies and original online story creation platforms to develop richer, more diversified content, and even expanded to the gaming, film and television industries.
According to ZhangYue’s co-founder Jia ShengTing, the company chose Guo Jin Capital because it has a well-planned investment structure in the film and television industry and in online entertainment. The reason they chose Alpha Animation was because of Alpha’s resources in the ACG (animation, comic and game) industry. The financing will be used mostly for building up the industry chain and in content selection.
ZhangYue also made several attempts in intellectual property (IP) expansion in 2015. For example, it provided three ways on its platform to adapt games, including progressive and reverse adaptation and interaction. In the film and television sphere, it prioritized the expansion of animation franchises over reading proceeds, and appeared willing to develop works of different genres and themes. Recently its most popular content Dangerous Partner was bought by LeTV, which will make it into a movie or TV series.