Chinese app store giant Wandoujia raises US$120m

13 Jan 2014

One of China’s largest mobile app distribution platforms is set to get even larger – Wandoujia has raised US$120m in funding that it will use to boost its growth.

SoftBank Corp has led the funding, which also included existing Wandoujia investors DCM and Innovation Works Development Fund (IWDF), TechCrunch reported.

Junyu Wang is CEO of Wandoujia, which currently has 300m users. He said the funds will help accelerate the company’s growth “and more openly serve developers and the entire ecosystem by developing technology and innovation in mobile search.”

China’s app ecosystem is becoming increasingly lucrative, with mobile game developer and publisher CocoaChina pegging it at US$1.2bn last year.

Internet search giant Google’s Google Play app store isn’t widely available in China, but there are more than 200 app stores in the country.

Wandoujia’s CEO, a former Google employee himself, launched Wandoujia in 2009.

App store image via Shutterstock

Tina Costanza was a journalist and sub-editor at Silicon Republic

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