Jun 26, 2020

IDG to Invest "Tens of Millions of Dollars" in Witkey Website Zhubajie Apr 7 2011  By Jin Zhang April 7 IDG Capital Partners will invest “tens of millions of dollars ” in Zhubajie.com the largest witkey website in China IDG executive vice president Hugo Shong said in a post on his microblog. The company confirmed the information and made an official announcement on official website. Witkey means the key of wit and was created by Liu Feng a Chinese graduate student. Witkey is wildly recognized as a web-ba sed system where users can exchange and purchases service idea and information sharing knowledge and experience in order to save time and money according to Wikipedia. IDG Capital Partners is a China-focused investment firm that manages over $2.5 billion in capital and has invested array of top Chinese internet firms in the past including Baidu.com Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) and Tencent Holdings Ltd (0700.HK). In the past 47 years IDG has invested in various IT companies in more than 90 countries. The company generated $3.16 billion revenue in 2010. In his microblog post Shong said traditional outsourcing service providers are facing more threatens from witkey’s business model especially in time price and quality as China’s economy and e-commerce industry boom. He said he is very positive about this emerging business model citing Zhubajie.com as a bellwether company in the witkey industry which has strengthened IDG’s confidence in investing in the company. Founded in 2006 Zhubajie.com is an idea service transition platform provider. Users can ask for help on the website and offer a reward for answers to their questions which normally cannot be answered via traditional internet searches. Zhu Mingyue the chief executive officer of Zhubajie.com said on his microblog on Wednesday that the company had acquired RMB 100 million in its first round of financing in 2007. Zhu also said that the new terms of financing from IDG reaffirmed his company’s confidence that its business model will cause a “working revolution” in the industry in the near future. After four years of development Zhubajie.com has grown into the largest witkey platform provider serving 25 countries and gaining support from district and municipal and governments in Chongqing. Tang Yingyu an official from Chongqing Yuzhong District Government said IDG’s investment would boost the district’s output value by RMB 1 billion in the next three to five years and would help Zhubajie.com in a future listing. According to a 2010 whitepaper China has more than 200 million witkey users with tens of thousands of new users signing up every day. CEO Zhu said the first round of financing was used on advertising team building and the establishment of an English-language website. This round of investment from IDG will be used for business expansion brand communication new product research and development and team building Zhu said. He also said Zhubajie.com will open a branch company in the U.S. in the next six months and expects to list on the Nasdaq market in the U.S. within three years. More than 400 witkey websites have appeared in China since 2005 but only a few have made major progress. Some industry insiders believe witkey to be an emerging e-commerce sector and some investors are touting it as the next big investment field.