Tencent, Baidu invest in state media-backed Pear Video amid content crackdown

April 18, 2018
Industry News
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Iris Deng
iris.deng@scmp.com

Pear Video, which counts People’s Daily publicly traded unit as an early investor, raised 617 million yuan (US$98.2 million) in its Series A funding round, led by Tencent and Baidu.

Chinese tech giants Tencent and Baidu have invested in Pear Video, an online short video platform that counts the listed unit of People’s Daily as a shareholder, amid a crackdown on internet content. 

Pear Video raised 617 million yuan (US$98.2 million) in its Series A financing round, led by Tencent and Baidu, and will use the funds to build its content production network and improve its business model, according to the Shanghai-based company. Tencent and Baidu confirmed the investment, but deferred requests for comment to Pear Video. 

People.cn, whose largest shareholders are the People’s Daily and Global Times, is an early investor in Pear Video, which was founded in 2016 by media veteran Qiu Bing, formerly the CEO of Chinese online media outlet, The Paper. 

The investment comes amid China’s ongoing crackdown on lowbrow online content. Kuaishou, one of China’s most popular live-streaming apps, was ordered by the Chinese media regulator to remove content that was “vulgar, violent, gory, pornographic and harmful” from its sites last week. Continue Reading

 

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