Baidu pumps money into Zhihu
Baidu and video site Kuaishou led a US$434-million funding round for local online question-and-answer site Zhihu.
Zhihu's existing investors Tencent Holdings Ltd and venture capital firm Capital Today also participated in the financing.
Baidu plans to use more content from Zhihu in search results to catch up with players in the mobile Internet realm including ByteDance's news aggregating app Toutiao.
Zhihu's Founder and Chief Executive Zhou Yuan said in a statement that the company aims to work with Baidu and Kuaishou to develop and distribute content and enhance the construction of an online ecosystem.
Zhihu started as a knowledge-sharing platform similar to that of Quora in 2010. Users can raise questions on any topics ranging from social issues to cooking or sports and get responses from other users.
It also allows blogging and live-streaming.
Zhihu will use the new funds to invest in technology and innovation. It has received investment totalling US$450 million from investors include Qiming Venture Partners and former Google China head Kai-Fu Lee's Sinovation Ventures.
