2008-04-28 22:58:11
Recently there have been lots of rumors in the media about our funding. Originally we didn’t plan on making a big announcement, but it seems our silence only generated more questions and speculation, so we thought it best to issue an official statement confirming that we have closed our fourth round of funding. Our “Series D” (as they call it) was for an additional $57 million USD, which we see as sufficient to support our expansion plans for a significant time going forward. We were very happy that our existing investors decided to double-down on us by re-investing in this round, and we were also very happy to welcome a couple of new investors, family and venture funds from Singapore and the US who prefer to remain unnamed for now. In addition to our earlier funding rounds (500k, 8.5M, and 19M), we’ve now raised a total of $85 million.
最近，有关土豆融资的媒体传闻非常多。我们一直认为融资并没什么值得大肆宣扬，但是我们的沉默似乎反而产生了更多的猜测和疑问，所以最后还是决定和大家正面沟通一下。土豆最近已经完成了第四轮融资，这轮（也就是投资人称作的“Series D”）我们融了5700万美元，这是一个能够在未来较长时间内支持土豆扩张发展的数目。很高兴的是，老投资人决定再次与我们深度绑定在一起，他们在这一轮追加了投资。同时，我们也非常高兴地欢迎两个新投资机构的加入，他们是来自新加坡和美国的家族投资和风险投资机构，由于平时非常低调，他们目前暂时还不愿意抛头露面。加上前三轮的融资分别是50万、850万和1900万美金，土豆目前总共获得了8500万美金的融资。
Everybody knows that video sharing websites require a huge amount of bandwidth and servers to maintain a good service level to users; and as the #1 video sharing website in China, Tudou needs the most bandwidth and servers of all. Users constantly want faster delivery and higher resolution videos, which although expensive we are happily doing by rolling out H.264 high definition videos across the entire site. With over 100 million clip views & page views to over 10 million unique users every day & over 60 million unique users every month, we support a huge amount of high definition videos streaming out to about a third of China’s 175 million broadband internet users.
大家都知道，视频分享网站需要巨大的带宽和服务器来支持对用户的良好服务水平。作为中国最大的视频分享网站，土豆的带宽与服务器需求是最大的。我们的用户一直希望视频播放速度更快，视频的质量更清晰；虽然很贵，我们还是在全站推开了H.264格式的高清版视频。而每天向上千万独立用户播放上亿次的视频与页面，每月到达6千万以上的独立用户，这意味着海量的高清晰版视频节目通过土豆在不断地传输到1/3的中国1.75亿宽带网民。
We know $57 million sounds like a lot – and is probably the largest amount ever raised for a pure-play Chinese Internet company in one round – but actually we turned down offers of even higher funding, because this industry is not about raising more money. We believe that the healthy development of China’s video sharing industry is about providing better services to users, advertisers, and content creators. This round of funding will allow Tudou to create a business model that lets media-hungry consumers demand their entertainment anytime and anywhere, allows advertisers to target demographics precisely and accurately, and fosters innovative content creators to receive just compensation.
我们知道5700万美金听起来是个很大的数目（也许是至今为止纯互联网公司在一轮融资中融到的最大的一笔）。但实际上我们这次拒绝了更多的钱，因为融资本身只是手段，并不是土豆的目的。我们认为中国视频分享行业如果要健康发展，就要给用户、广告客户和内容创造者提供更好的服务。而土豆的这轮融资正是为了确立一个商业模式能够让渴望获得娱乐的用户随时随地获取内容，让广告客户能够精准定位到他们希望达到的目标人群， 让有创意的内容创造者获得合理的报酬。
Video sharing has come to a critical junction in its development as an industry. With this new round of funding, we now have the resources to patiently build up a solid business model and a healthy, viable ecosystem for all of our partners.
Happy 3rd Birthday Tudou, and check out our nominees of our first Tudou Film Festival online, as well as videos of the April 26th party at Moganshan.
视频分享行业的发展已经到了一个关键时刻，而这次融资给土豆带来了足够的资源可以更耐心地搭建一个坚实稳固的商业模式，并与所有的合作伙伴共同建设一个健康的、可持续发展的生态环境。
土豆三周岁了！敬请关注土豆网上的第一届土豆电影节入围作品、以及4月26日莫干山颁奖Party的精彩视频，与我们共同分享成长的快乐！