MX Player scoops up $111 Mn fresh round from Tencent

Making its first bet in Indian OTT space, Chinese conglomerate Tencent has led a whopping $110.8 million financing round in Times Internet-owned video streaming platform MX Player.

MX Player plans to deploy the fresh capital to generate more original contents and in expanding entertainment genres. The video streaming platform has raised its first external funding at $500 post-money valuation, as per Techcrunch report.

This is the second bet by Chinese internet giant into Times Internet-backed entities. Last year in February, Tencent had led $115 million financial round into music streaming app Gaana.

The deal will give Tencent foothold in Indian burgeoning OTT space, which it has been eyeing to enter for long.

Over the years, the Chinese conglomerate has emerged as one of the largest investors in the Indian startup ecosystem. Apart from its high-profile investments in Ola, Byju's, Hike and Flipkart, Tencent has this year backed Udaan and Khatabook.

The fresh capital inflow in MX Player will further intensify the OTT battle in the growing Indian market. Post the deal, Times Internet shareholding in MX Players also would reduce to 49%, as per sources.

Earlier in 2018, Times Internet had acquired a majority stake in video app MX Player from Chinese games company Zenjoy for about $200 million.

The company forayed into OTT with the launch of five new web series, including Aafat, ImMature, Lots of Love, in February this year. MX Player boasts of 175 million monthly active users in India. Globally, the MAUs and DAUs of the platform stand at 280 million and 100 million, respectively.

Currently, the ad-supported platform does not charge any monthly subscription from users.

MX Payer has in recent months started testing video streaming services in international markets such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Like OTT giant Netflix, It also plans to make original shows for these markets.

In the OTT space, the major players MX player competes with players including Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Zee5, Voot and ALTBalaji.