Paktor’s New Merged Company M17 Entertainment Raises $40m Series A
The owner of Paktor has just raised $40m in funding with its new merged company M17 Entertainment.
M17 Entertainment was created in April after Paktor acquired a controlling stake in Taiwan live streaming company 17 Media last year.
And the merged company has now announced a massive new Series A funding of $40m led by Japanese venture firm Infinity Venture Partners (IVP).
Other investors include Vertex Asia Fund, Yahoo Japan, Majuven, Golden Summit Capital and Korean venture firm KTB Ventures.
The company said the funding will be used for expansion into markets like Japan, Indonesia and Hong Kong.
In addition to this, the team will receive professional training and the company will begin scouting for “qualified content creators” such live streamers, music producers, and celebrities.
M17 Entertainment also wants to focus on producing more original content like music, commentary, variety shows and reality TV programmes.
This strategy will be developed through a new partnership between live streaming arm 17 Media and Asian music streaming service KKBOX.
Speaking about the partnership, M17 Entertainment co-founder and CEO, Joseph Phua said: “17 Media’s growth as a successful multimedia platform in Asia is the result of perseverance in the past 2 years.
“Working together with Asia’s largest music platform KKBOX, not only are we bringing music and instant messaging together, we hope to create more chances of exposure for passionate music makers.”
The funding comes as 17 Media announces its user base has crossed the 30m mark.
Since June, the company has been producing in-house original live streaming content and successfully increased active user activity to 45 minutes.
In May, 17 Media also hosted Taiwan’s inaugural live streaming awards ceremony “Golden Feather Awards”, which was watched by 1m users.
Speaking about its partnership with the group, KKBOX founder Chris Lin said: “Live streaming is currently the main driver in content distribution and with 17 Media being the market leader, we want to start cultivating more talents in original content production.
“Supporting original Taiwanese content is a common objective and with that, KKFARM and KKTV from KKBOX Group will work with M17 Entertainment to invest in original content creators.
“The content will be broadcasted on KKBOX’s media channels. We will also assist in music production, lending more exposure to music talents as well as giving them a chance to fulfill their aspirations as a singer.”
M17 Entertainment has offices in Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Indonesia, with a total staff of 300.
The combined business owns dating products Paktor, Down, Sweet, Goodnight, GaiGai and Kickoff, as well as 17 Media’s live streaming app 17.
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