China’s largest smartphone company Xiaomi has invested in Misfit Wearables, a California-based wearable technology company that has designed the sleek-looking, all-metal activities tracker “Shine.”Xiaomi, together with Chinese e-commerce company JD.com, and venture capital funds GGV Capital and Shunwei, contributed to more than half of Misfit’s $40 million series C round. The remainder is provided by existing partners which include Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures.
・Chinese investors have committed to investing $6 billion in U.S. technology companies in the first quarter of 2014, a significant jump from the previous four years when annual investment topped $1 billion.
・Sonny Vu, co-founder of Misfit, explained that the partnership is more about strategic alliance than about money. Vu admitted that he didn’t completely understand why their product took off in China, and therefore hoped to better understand Chinese consumers by working with the new investors.
・The company is in the process of building up its China manufacturing – previously all its products were manufactured in South Korea.
・The market for wearable devices in China is expected to hit $385 million this year, up more than 100% from 2013, according to research company Analysys International.
Source: Forbes