Tencent Investment was the most active Chinese venture capital firm in the first quarter with 103 deals internationally, spending more than RMB 60 billion (USD 9.2 billion), according to the Qichacha data aggregator. Around 30% of its targets were game developers, suggesting that Tencent invested into a game company every three days in Q1.
Deals in the sector have made headlines in the past few months, as Chinese internet companies are forming alliances to challenge Tencent’s dominance in the gaming space. TikTok owner ByteDance acquired two studios in a month, one of which—Moonton—is the biggest multiplayer battle arena game developer in Southeast Asia.
Long video streaming platform Bilibili, meanwhile, is betting on XD Network, which owns the Android game distribution platform TapTap, where Genshin Impact was released last year.
Xingsheng Youxuan, a Changsha-based community group-buying platform, is the only company that received two rounds of investment from Tencent in the first three months of 2021, says the Qichacha report.
Read this: Video | Can ByteDance replicate Tencent’s blueprint for success in gaming?
This article is part of KrASIA’s “Key Stat” series, where KrASIA picks and presents the most significant figures of the day’s technology and business world.