Tencent-backed “Chinese Quora” Zhihu receives USD 434 million strategic investment from Baidu and Kuaishou – KrASIA

▤ Summary

Although it was initially established with similar features, it has evolved into a diversified social media site with a profound knowledge-sharing community since. The popular short video app Kuaishou had reportedly wanted to participate in Zhihu’s previous financing rounds, but the two parties could not come to an agreement until now, a person close to the matter told 36Kr. According to a person close to Baidu, this round of investment will lead to Zhihu’s Q&A platform joining Baidu’s mini programs library and deepen the business linkage. The aim of this RMB 1 billion project is to attract startups and developers to run their apps on Baidu’s own ecosystem, to enrich the content and find new users. Since then, the company has built out its two major income businesses: commercial advertizing and knowledge services.

$ Funding

▦ Linked Companies

Tencent

$1B+