Alibaba Acquires NGP, Morningstar Shares in UCWeb
National Business Daily, 8/26/13
Yu Yongfu, Chairman and CEO of Chinese third-party mobile browser developer UCWeb, stated during an interview with the National Business Daily that both Nokia Growth Partners and Morningside Ventures withdrew their investments in UCWeb as part of e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group's shareholding increase during UCWeb's most recent round of funding. With the changes, the UCWeb Board of Directors will now have a total of 5 seats as opposed to its previous 7, with 3 seats to be held by management, and 1 seat for Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma. Yu did not reveal if the fifth seat would be reserved for Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Beijing-based Android handset developer Xiaomi and one of UCWeb's earliest investors. Sources close to UCWeb have stated that the fifth seat will be held by a representative from Granite Global Ventures (GGV).
In December 2006, UCWeb obtained angel funding of RMB 4 mln from Lei and others, followed in August 2007 by a combined investment of RMB 10 mln from Morningside Ventures and Ceyuan Ventures. In June 2009, UCWeb accepted strategic investment funds from Alibaba Group, and in March 2010 obtained funding from Nokia Growth Partners and GGV.
According to Yu, with the increased investment by Alibaba, UCWeb is now valued at over USD 1 bln, with management looking to raise the figure to several billion prior to an IPO.
Editor's Note: For more background on this topic, please see "Jack Ma Joins UCWeb Board of Directors" MD 8/22/13 issue, "Rumor: Alibaba Increases Stake in UCWeb" MD 5/03/13 issue, and "UCWeb Receives Funding from Nokia Growth Partners" MD 3/30/10 issue.
Keywords: Jack Ma Lei Jun funding investment wireless mobile browser UCWeb Ceyuan Ventures Morningside Nokia Growth Partners Yu Yongfu GGV Capital
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