Chinese Tech giant LeEco’s cloud platform, LeCloud, received RMB one billion (USD 153 million) in Series A financing led by an investment fund run by the Chongqing government, pushing its valuation to about RMB seven billion.
The investor will hold a 16.67% stake in the platform, while LeEco will decrease its stake from 60% to 50%.
This round of investment will be used for R&D, service improvement and new recruitment. The platform will also upgrade its cloud technology and expand its business to a global market.
Founded as LeEco’s cloud subsidiary in 2014, LeCloud is a free-of-charge cloud platform that provides storage space for private users and corporate clients to share photos, files, music and software. The platform claims it has billions of users, provides broadcasting services for millions of shows every year and receives about 100 million access requests every day.
Analysts were quoted in Beijing Business Today on Friday saying the state-backed fund will help LeCloud attract large orders from the Chinese government to compete with major players. LeEco also issued a statement that the Chongqing government will provide better internet services and operation support for LeCloud.
Since last year, the cloud platform has achieved strategic partnership with Chinese radio and television enterprises, and global partners including Microsoft and Dell.
Jia Yueting, founder and CEO of LeEco, said the cloud platform is one of the strategic priorities in the next three years, and it is among LeEco’s four Unicorn businesses including the sports subsidiary, smartphone division and online car-hailing company.
(Top photo from LeCloud official website.)