With fundings from Shanshui Congrong Media investment company, a fund under the arm of The Beijing News, backed by Communist Party of China, Blued has received more than just capital, but also social recognition.

On Feb 7th, 2017, Blued announced another funding round from Shanshui Congrong Media investment company, a fund under the arm of The Beijing News. Following the Series C and C+ financing completed in 2016 June, this marks the 3rd financing of Blued in the past 12 months and the 6th financing of all time.

Shanshui Congrong, the investor of this round, thinks vertical social network will become the next promising area, while Blued holds a leading position and has a strong advantage in international development, with explosive growth in live broadcasting, E-commerce, online game, healthcare, and entertainment contents. Geng Le, Blued’s CEO thinks this round of financing is strategically important, especially when the company has enough cash balance on account.

Same as Momo, strongly driven by live broadcasting business, in 2016 Blued experienced a strong growth both in revenue and market share, with revenue of live broadcasting business reaching tens of million USD, and realized positive profitability domestically. Besides, Blued has now accumulated 27 million users in total, among which 6 million are overseas.

Since April 2016, Blued has entered into international market by setting up offices in Thailand, Vietnam and UK, and launching the international version app including 13 languages. In Southeast Asia market, Blued is intended to hold a leading position in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippine and Indonesia by starting with social network and live broadcasting under the localization principle. In European market, Blued completed product optimization and conducted market promotion in UK in November, and reached strategic cooperation with Hornet in December, the 2nd largest gay social network worldwide. Blued has also become the main sponsor for Gay Games Paris 2018, the 10th World Outgames for gay community.

Besides the revenue from live broadcasting, membership premium service and games, as a gay social network, Blued also has a specialty in healthcare, such as HIV detection, prevention and cure. As a social welfare organization before, Blued does care a lot about the living condition of this minor group. As Geng Le said, “Gay community is still faced with strong controversy and there should be a good channel for this group to communicate with the government and the public”.

Ventech China is a Blued investor since 2015 and a board member of the company.