Google Ventures into Chinese eSports Market with $120 Million Investment

Google has been exploring different ways to enter the Chinese market place, since its most popular and widely-used production, Google Search, has been blocked in the land. In order to practice and so, the California-based business firm has been investing in Chinese startups which will help it gain a strong foothold in the land.

Back in 2015, Google caused a minority stake in Beijing-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup Mobvoi as part of a $75 million fundraising round. Now, the company has led a $120 meg investment in Chinese live-stream mobile game platform Chushou. Google'due south investment in Asia now include task sourcing (Bharat'south Dunzo) and hardware (Taiwan's HTC), other than the aforementioned companies in China.

Chushou, which was founded in 2015, is an online esports platform on which users can circulate their mobile phone games live for others to watch. According to reports, the service has around 8 million streamers and 250,000 live streams a day. With the recent investment, Google will aid the Chinese house aggrandize its services within the country and also help it target viewers globally.

Neither company has revealed the size of Google'southward stake in the Chinese visitor or its valuation after its recent Serial D funding. In a argument regarding Google'southward investment, Frank Lin, Google'southward primary of corporate evolution in north Asia, said "Chushou has congenital an impressive platform, with a dedicated and quickly growing base of content creators and consumers, and smart expansion plans. Nosotros're excited to be supporting Chushou through this investmnet to help them execute those plans, bringing great mobile gaming content to more than people around the earth."

With the investment, Google plans to connect with China's large population of young, tech-savvy net users, which has previously been a challenge for the visitor.