AsianScientist (Aug. 22, 2011) – Hudong.com (互动在线), China’s answer to Wikipedia, announced that the company has raised RMB100 million (US$15.6 million) in the recent round of financing to accelerate its commercialization process, and to promote its presence in the mobile Internet sector.
Writing on his Weibo page this morning, Hudong CEO Pan Haidong (潘海东) revealed that he had just returned from the US, where he carried out the company’s third round of financing.
Founded on July 18th, 2005, the Chinese wiki page has amassed nearly 5.4 million entries, 5.53 billions words, and 5.82 million pictures, created by nearly 3.6 million users as of July 2011. Describing it as a “fenceless university”, Pan hopes it may help to popularize Chinese knowledge and culture worldwide.
Hudong.com competes with another homegrown wiki encyclopedia, Baidu’s Baike (百度百科) by Baidu Inc., which has about 3.5 million entries as of July 2011.
In April 2011, Hudong.com officially launched Baike.com (互动百科), a bridge between the knowledge platform and the commercial arm of the company. Baike.com is described as a “small” open encyclopedia platform that has infinite sections with independent second-level domain names that focus on a particular area, object, and activity.
In addition, Baike.com provides an APP mobile media platform, allowing enterprises or individuals to immediately have a proprietary APP, without the help of code technicians.
“Hudong.com plans to produce 10,000 mobile APPs in 2011, truly realizing the transition from an APP factory to the APP market,” said Pan.
Hudong.com previously received two rounds of funding in 2006 and 2009 from early stage venture capital fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, for a total financing of US$30 million.
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Source: Hudong.com.
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