Viet Nam-based online video startup Big Cat Entertainment Co Ltd has sold a major stake to Asia Innovations Group (AIG), a Chinese mobile internet company developing social and entertainment products.

Big Cat co-founder Phan Do Tri Dung acknowledged the sale but declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal due when contacted by Việt Nam News.

"The transaction is not for money. We have always wanted to look for a stronger partner with global knowledge and synergy to develop outside Viet Nam," Dung said.

He hoped with global know-how and investments from AIG, Big Cat can make an IPO in the United States in the future.

Big Cat Entertainment, founded last year by three former high school classmates, has built social media and video content for a Southeast Asian audience. It is the owner of three popular YouTube channels Ghien Mi Go, FapTV and Phim Cap 3, each hitting 50 million views.

The local entertainment company made a profit just three months after starting out and reportedly has earned more than US$1.2 million in revenue this year to date.

The company would continue to produce online programmes under Big Cat.

AIG is expected to help Big Cat Entertainment reach out of Viet Nam as the former operates globally with offices expanding in Beijing, HCM City, Tokyo, Taipei, Cairo and Hong Kong.

Founded in 2013, the mobile internet firm has been funded by a number of institutional investors including Kleiner Perkins China, Magic Stone Investments, Wicklow Capital, Ventech Capital, Index Ventures, WhiteStar Capital, as well as angel investors from Qunar, Facebook, Google and Zynga.

Vietnamese startups have attracted bigger attention from overseas investors, particularly in four sectors such as e-commerce, communication, finance and technology platform (fintech), and education technology platform (edtech).

In the past year, a number of acquisitions have happened in the startup businesses, of which the highest-valued deal was the $260 million acquisition that Fossil Group paid to acquire Misfit, a Vietnamese maker of a wearable activity tracker in December 2015. 

VNS