Beijing Kylin Said to Get Injection from SINA

Beijing Kylin Network Information Science and Technology Co., Ltd. (70yx.com) will soon complete its series B fundraising, according to a person in the know, saying that the interactive entertainment service provider still need to nail down some details with investors.

However, they are going to close their negotiations and likely to announce the result after the Spring Festival. SINA Corporation (Nasdaq: SINA) is among the investor list.

The source discloses that this is the last round of financing kicked off by Beijing Kylin before its listing. Formerly, there were rampant talks that SINA was going to inject capital into the company.

However, tech.163.com finds out that Beijing Kylin's raised capital tops USD 100 million, only USD 10 million are from SINA. That is to say, the latter will not acquire or take helm of the former.

Since Beijing Kylin rifts with Sohu.com Inc. (Nasdaq: SOHU) and Changyou.com Ltd. (Nasdaq: CYOU) over the operation of Chinggis Khan, it is in an embarrassed situation in terms of the promotion of the game.

Shortly after Chinggis Khan was launched, because of the contradiction between Beijing Kylin with Sohu.com and Changyou.com, the game lost support from game portals like 17173.com.

Although Chinggis Khan obtained peak concurrent players of more than 200,000 during its open beta test, the force-out of 17173.com blocks the marketing and promotion of the game.

The data relating to the installation of Chinggis Khan in cyber bars around China has been slipping since the third week of 2010, and incurred a 3.78% negative growth in the fifth week.

The COO of Beijing Kylin revealed in a blog that 17173.com forbade the publication of any article that is related to Chinggis Khan and its developer since 2008.

At the end of the year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) honored Chinggis Khan as one of the ten most anticipated online games. However, 17173.com only released the names of the other nine companies.

Hence, Beijing Kylin has other fish to fry by the invitation of SINA as a strategic investor, believed analysts. Meanwhile, it is too late for SINA to foray into the online gaming field, and it may be a better choice to invest in existing game companies.

However, SINA denies that it has participated in the investment in Beijing Kylin, saying that no agreement has been inked with any company relating to capital injection.

SINA has been paying high attention to the development of the online gaming and social networking service markets, and will announce the latest progress if it take actions in the fields.

(USD 1 = CNY 6.83)

Source: www.163.com (February 10, 2010)

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