B站 receives $400 million investment from Sony and will cooperate in animation, games and other fields

Bilibili ("Bilibili") announced that it has received a strategic investment of US$400 million from Sony, and also stated that the two parties will cooperate in multiple fields, especially animation and mobile games. This is another important strategic investor that Bilibili has obtained after Tencent and Alibaba.

According to the agreement, Sony will subscribe for 17,310,696 newly issued Class Z common shares of Bilibili through a wholly-owned subsidiary for a total consideration of approximately US$400 million. The purchase price is US$23.1071 per Class Z common share, equivalent to US$23.1071 per Bilibili American Depositary Share (ADS). The transaction is expected to be completed soon, at which time Sony will hold approximately 4.98% of the total issued shares of Bilibili through its subsidiary.

Regarding this cooperation, Chen Rui, Chairman and CEO of Bilibili, said: "We are very pleased to reach a cooperation with Sony Corporation, a global leader in entertainment and technology. This strategic cooperation will help us bring better content and better service experience to users, especially in the fields of animation and games. We look forward to working with Sony in a wider range of fields to meet the growing cultural and entertainment needs of users."

It is reported that the two sides have a long history of business cooperation in animation, games, music and other fields. Since 2014, B Station has launched a number of cooperation with Sony's wholly-owned subsidiary Aniplex in the purchase of animation copyrights, and announced in 2016 that it would exclusively represent Aniplex's mobile game "Fate/Grand Order". Recently, B Station has also reached a strategic cooperation with Sony Music, and users can watch MVs in Sony Music's music library on B Station.

This round of financing is another important strategic investor that Bilibili has introduced since its listing, following Tencent and Alibaba. In October 2018, Bilibili received a $320 million investment from Tencent. In February 2019, Alibaba announced its investment in Bilibili.