Xiaomi could be worth more than Uber, Twitter, LinkedIn and Netflix after $1bn investment round
A Beijing-based company which has become the world’s third-largest smartphone maker in the space of four years is now said to be worth more than the likes of Uber, Twitter, LinkedIn and Netflix after its latest funding round.
Xiaomi has raised $1bn (£640m) from a host of investors, valuing the firm at more than $45bn, according to the Wall Street Journal, making it one of the highest valued startups in the world.
It surpasses the Uber's recent $40bn valuation, as well as a host of well-known publicly listed tech companies such as Twitter, with a market cap of $23.5bn, LinkedIn at $29bn and Netflix at $20.5bn. It’s also hot on the heels of giants such as Yahoo, with a market cap of $48bn.
The company is said to have received capital from All-Stars Investment, a fund run by former Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Ji, Russian firm DST Global, the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, and Yunfeng Capital, a private equity firm affiliated with Jack Ma of Alibaba, the report said.
Xiaomi became the world’s third largest smartphone maker behind Samsung and Apple the latest smartphone shipment data from IDC revealed in October, and earlier this year overtook Samsung to become China’s largest smartphone maker.
The firm has come to dominate its home market and other emerging markets with its high-quality low-priced handsets where others, such as Apple with the 5C model, have failed to make an impression on China's huge population.