Tencent leads $350mn Kuaishou investment

Kuaishou, the Chinese video streaming service popular with rural communities and migrant workers, has raised $350 million in a funding round led by internet giant Tencent.  The latest investment comes as tech giants from Tencent to Alibaba invest billions of dollars in video content and services, hoping to convert time spent on these platforms into online ad revenue. Tencent joins rival Baidu as a backer of Kuaishou, which announced the investment in an email without mentioning a valuation. According to Bloomberg, Kuaishou, which translates into “fast hand,” is a video platform in the same vein as Instagram or Periscope. Over 50 million daily active users watch short clips and live broadcasts of everything from noodle-slurping to physical feats of prowess, with more than 5 million such videos uploaded a day. Most of its viewers and uploaders live in the countryside or smaller communities.