糖心视频

Morning Report: Korea-based selfie app, Snow, raised $50 Million in a Series A funding round by Sequoia Capital China and Softbank.

Aside from the occasional visit via VPNs, Snap is one of the many social media tools . Fortunately for Chinese users, another selfie taking app, this time based in Korea, has gained popularity among Chinese investors.

Follow Crunchbase News on &

, a platform which started off as the of Snap, now allows users to take selfies with its AR camera and then share their gifs, images, and videos via other social media and messaging platforms. The company just raised $50 million for its China operation in a 聽led by 听飞颈迟丑听聽joining the round. The announcement adds to the long list of cash-heavy early-stage investments that have defined China鈥檚 VC market over the past five years. Snow has raised a total of $95 million to date.

Snow鈥檚 other investors include , a Japan-based mobile messaging platform. According to Line went public in 2016 with a U.S.-Japan $1.1 billion. Following the messaging startup鈥檚 public debut, Line in Snow in 2016. In February 2017, it doubled its 25 percent stake in the company to a 48.6 percent. Line and Snow share as a parent company.

Snow successfully launched in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, and moved over to the mainland in 2016, attempting to tap into the region鈥檚 lucrative millennial market. The startup鈥檚 success drew the attention of established social media giant Facebook, which was denied the in October 2016鈥攁nother setback for Facebook’s China ambitions. According to , the app had 40-50 million monthly active users in January 2017, with China representing it鈥檚 largest market.

In the same period, it was also that China鈥檚 mobile internet usage hit half of the country鈥檚 total population of nearly 1.4 billion. To put that into perspective, that is more than two times the population of the United States. So to say that the market potential is significant is a bit of an understatement.

With the app鈥檚 massive potential for growth in the mainland, we鈥檒l have to wait and see if Snow will have larger competitors to contend with in the future. For now, it鈥檚 a bit too soon to tell.

From The聽:

, a developer of enterprise data automation software that counted Steve Wozniak as chief scientist, is reportedly going bust. The five-year-old Silicon Valley company previously raised about $100 million in debt and equity financing from well-known venture firms.

Tech executive聽聽has resigned from his post as chief operating officer at Twitter and is moving on to become CEO of online lending unicorn聽. SoFi鈥檚 previous CEO, Mike Cagney, stepped down late last year following harassment allegations.

Cryptos fall amid tighter regulation

Chinese, South Korean, and European Union governments have all made moves quite recently to impose new cryptocurrency regulations or enhance old ones. These efforts are weighing on the market, with bitcoin alone shedding close to one-fourth its value in the past week, Crunchbase News reports.

, a Silicon Valley-based early stage technology firm led by veteran VCs Jennifer Fonstad and Theresia Gouw, has raised $181 million for a second fund.

Top Image Credit:聽.