MX Player, an OTT platform, owned by Times Internet, has raised $110 million (approx INR 780 crore) investment round led by Tencent, reported ET, citing two sources.
While, Times Internet also participated in the funding round as it was the maiden fund raising round of MX Player after it was acquired by the former.
Presently, the MX Player is valued at $500 million after the successful fund transfer, claims sources.
The company MX Player, will use the infused financial to build up content portfolio on its platform.
Satyan Gajwani, vice-chairman of Times Internet, said that MX Player was Times Internet’s most ambitious investment in 2018.
“It plays an important role in Times Internet’s strategy of being the largest consumer platform in India, and we’re excited to have Tencent help us in this mission,” Gajwani added.
Starting as a South Korea-based video playback application MX Player in 2011, it quickly grew a sizeable user base on Android and was downloaded over 500 million times when it was acquired by Times Internet for $144 million in 2018.
MX player had claimed to have over 70 million daily active users and 650 million downloads worldwide at the time. The OTT platform MX Player claims that it has around 280 million monthly active users globally with a presence in over 200 countries.
Karan Bedi, chief executive of MX Player, told ET that MX player’s vision is to be one of the world’s largest entertainment platforms, serving users with a variety of online entertainment needs, starting with streaming video.
In the similar assembly line as MX Players, other emerging OTT platforms include Amazon Prime Video, SonyLIV, Netflix, Voot, Zee5, ALTBalaji, Hotstar, and few more.