Digital Magazine Operator VIVA Secured $20 Million of Series C Financing

VIVA, a digital magazine operator, announced $20 million of Series C financing from a French investment institution and Yu Minhong, founder of China’s largest private education service provider New Oriental (report in Chinese).

The company has received $10 million of Series A funding from Highland Capital Partners and Ventech Capital in 2009. It then secured tens of million dollars in Series B financing from 360 and two Series A investors in 2012.

The firm’s product portfolio includes digital magazine VIVA Changdu and custom reading service VivaMe, and VIVA Time.

With more than 100 million installs, the monthly active users of various platforms under VIVA amounted to 30 million, disclosed Wang Jieming, president of the company. He noted that the company has contracted with around 300 magazines.

VIVA’s monthly revenue reached more than 1 million yuan ($163.17), mainly come from paid services of mobile users by share revenues with telecom operators. China Mobile, a leading cooperator of the company, takes 60% of the revenue, while VIVA pockets the rest 40%.

Wang predicted that mobile Internet advertisement will witness booming development in the near future, adding that VIVA’s revenue from mobile ads will reach 30 million yuan this year.

In the fourth quarter of this year, VIVA planned to launch a paid app which mainly concentrates on books containing both textual and pictorial contents, such as tourist guide and photography. In addition, VIVA will add social networking functions as early as the end of this year, according to Wang.