Entertainment Portal iFensi.com Lands USD 30 Mln Funding
Tencent Tech, 12/31/10
Chinese vertical entertainment portal iFensi.com has received USD 30 mln in funding from Korea's SK Telecom, and has reached a strategic agreement with microblogging service Sina Weibo, both strategic components of its entry into the film and video production and celebrity management industries.
CEO Wang Jipeng stated that the company had already formulated an internal timetable for going public: "We hope to IPO within 3 years, either in Korea or on the Nasdaq. The precondition is that we must prove our commercial model by achieving annual revenues of RMB 200 mln."
In November, 2005, Wang received RMB 10 mln in angel investment from PE, VC and direct investment firm China Equity. iFensi.com went online on November 20 of the same year. In 2007, the website received an additional USD 5 mln from the CEO of Focus Media Holding (Nasdaq: FMCN), Jason Jiang. During the first 6 months of operations, iFensi doubled or tripled its registered users and site traffic with each passing month. The website broke even in 2007 and began turning a profit in late 2009.
The site organizes activities in three major areas: 1. Concerts, celebrity appearances and celebrity birthday celebrations; 2. Fan activities and interactions; and 3. Sales of products related to celebrities, such as DVDs or personal paraphernalia. For advertisers, iFensi offers marketing and promotion opportunities through online fan communities and offline fan activities.
Editor's Note: For more background on this topic, please see "Rumor: SK Telecom to Merge iFensi, Cyworld" MD 1/27/10 issue.
Keywords: vertical portal Internet funding SK Telecom VC registered users Sina microblogging iFensi Wang Jipeng
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