Tencent made a huge bet on the enterprise market with the launch of WeChat enterprise this year, hoping to tap the large number of businesses already using the hugely-popular message platform for work.
According to the company’s latest earnings report, WeChat enterprise has over 20 million registered users, and they’re now doubling down on productivity tools with a new investment in workflow startup, Teambition.
Shanghai-based Teambition sealed an undisclosed amount of funding from the tech giant as part of a B+ funding round, following a 12 million USD series B in September last year.
Both companies have remained tight-lipped on the investment, though in an interview with Technode in May last year Teambition CEO Junyuan Qi said the company had already begun working with paying customers abroad in Australia and Japan.
He also pitched the company as a local replacement for several western a SaaS services including Trello and Dropbox. “Since China doesn’t have those products, we decided poise ourselves as a one-stop-shop for providing all of them,” said Mr. Qi.
Tencent has been aggressively investing in startups that could potentially be integrated into the WeChat ecosystem, including productivity, entertainment and payments services. Lat week they also invested in fitness app KEEP, which has synergies with Tencent’s own WeChat-enabled fitness tracking services.
Teambition’s previous investors include Gobi Partners, IDG, Northern Light Venture Capital and Vangoo Capital Partners.