Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi, which also has a good presence in India, has confirmed that it has received $1.1 billion in fresh funding from All-Stars Investment, an investment firm launched by former Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Ji, besides Russian investment firm DST Global, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, Hopu Fund, and Yunfeng Capital, among others.
This funding values Xiaomi at $45 billion.
In a post on social networking site Facebook, Xiaomi’s co-founder and president Bin Lin said, “We just completed the latest round of funding last week, raising $1.1 billion at valuation of $45 billion. This is an affirmation of Xiaomi's stellar results in four years, and heralds a new phase for the company.â€
He further added, “We will strive to continue bringing innovation to everyone, with a goal of producing high-quality, high-performance devices with great user experience. In January 2015, we will be unveiling our next flagship device. Big thanks to all Mi fans, business partners and investors for your strong support.â€
Last week, The Wall Street Journal had first reported Xiaomi’s fundraise.
Founded in 2010, Xiaomi is a mobile internet company with over 3,000 employees across the globe. Already one of the leading smartphone manufacturers in China, Xiaomi had made a successful debut in the Indian smartphone market in July this year with the launch of its previous flagship device Mi3.
It had entered into an exclusive partnership with Indian e-commerce major Flipkart.com to offer its devices. Following an online only flash sales model for selling its devices in the country, the company has seen its products being sold out within seconds.
According to Jun Lei, co-founder and CEO of Xiaomi, India is becoming its largest overseas market.
However, it has been facing patent related challenges in India. Early this month, the Delhi High Court had granted an ex parte injunction order against Xiaomi for infringement of Swedish telecoms equipment maker Ericsson’s patents. The order prohibited the company from manufacturing, importing, advertising, and selling the devices that infringe the Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) in question.
However, the ban was lifted within a week of granting the order, and Xiaomi was permitted to sell and import Qualcomm chipset-based (a licensee of Ericsson) handsets in the country till Jan 8, 2015.
The firm's proposed launch if its current flagship device Mi4 has been pushed back, though its speculated it may be launched next month.