Q Daily, an online news outlet focusing on technology, design, fashion, and entertainment news, has recently disbanded, people familiar with the matter told KrASIA.
Both Q Daily’s website and app, which are very popular among Chinese young people, appear to be inaccessible on Thursday afternoon.
The company was founded in 2014 with Chinese media tycoon Li Ruigang serving on its board of directors. It raised a pre-series A round in 2016 from CMC Capital Group.
In May it announced that it would halt updates of its website and app for three months. Readers could access its article archives but would not be able to leave comments, the site said at that time.
“Thanks for the help and supports in the past five years,” Q Daily said on Weibo announcing the decision then.
It’s not clear what triggered the update suspension in May or why the site and app have now gone offline.
The firm itself claims the outage is due to technical difficulties. “Our website servers have a technical issue and we are still resolving it. Thanks for the concerns,” the company told local media.
Phone calls to a landline number registered under the company went unanswered outside work hours.