Officially launched in December 2006, Youku is one of many online video services in China. Youku says it currently delivers more than 80 million video views on a daily basis.

“Youku has achieved its leadership position in the last 12 months by growing more than 10 times in user base and number of videos viewed per day,” said Victor Koo, Founder and CEO of Youku.com. “We are honored to have Brookside Capital Partners, a fund affiliated with global private equity firm Bain Capital, as our new investment partner, and continued participation by Sutter Hill, Farallon and Chengwei Ventures. With the support of these world-class investors, we are confident to build Youku into the largest and most profitable online video company in China.”

Besides closing a new round of financing, Youku also announced recently that it has entered into an online video strategic cooperation with Sohu.com. Previously, Youku.com formed a strategic partnership with Baidu, the leading search engine in China and the company also provides exclusive game video support to Shanda, the Nasdaq-listed online game operator in China. In the mean time, Youku has also cooperated with many leading media and entertainment organizations in China, including China Film Group, CCTV, Universal Music, Phoenix TV, Shanghai TV, Jiangsu Satellite TV and China Education TV.

“We are very happy to bring our firm’s media expertise to this partnership with Youku,” said Mark Moore, Director at Brookside Capital Partners. “We believe Victor and his team are well positioned to replicate the success of the leading Chinese internet portals in the video space and succeed in building another strong internet company in China.”

Before Series C, Youku successfully completed two rounds of venture financing of US$15 million in total from Sutter Hill Ventures, Farallon Capital and Chengwei Ventures.

Source : Chinatechnews