NetEase Cloud Music, a Chinese online music platform, has recently completed a series A round of financing raising 750 million yuan. The financing valued NetEase Cloud Music at around 8 billion yuan (US$1.16 billion), making it a unicorn company four years after it was launched in April 2013.
Shanghai Media Group led the investment and was joined by Mango Cultural and Creative Industry Private Equity Fund, and CICC Jiatai Fund.
The announcement was made by Zhu Yiwen, CEO of NetEase, at a recent press conference on April 11 in Shanghai, where the company also announced that it had reached 300 million users on its platform.
The capital raised will be mainly used for enhancing the user experience of NetEase Cloud Music products, increasing investment on content, developing a healthy patent system and establishing a solution for upstream and downstream music.
During this round of financing, NetEase entrusted Fortune Finance, also a NetEase company, as its exclusive financial advisor. It is the first time for NetEase to have its products open to the domestic capital market.