88tc88 Receives Investment, Aspires to Bring Legit Western Content to China

Readers may recall late last year we wrote about startup 88tc88, which helps artists and record labels sell their music legally in China. The company has now just announced that investment company Alstin has made a ‘single-digit million euro investment’ in the service, in exchange for a ‘significant equity stake.’

We got in touch with founder Thomas Reemer, who explained that the company isn’t just about music anymore, but it also will work on localizing games, apps, ebooks as well. In fact, says Thomas, the company’s B2C sales platform Paishou88 (set for a closed beta release in June) will offer 450,000 apps.

When asked what artists have used the music service yet, Thomas lists names like Sean Lennon, The Feelies, Johnny Winter, Manu Chao, and others.

Of course when it comes to entertainment in China, not only do you have legit competitors, but you also have piracy to compete with as well. I asked what kind of plan the company has up its sleeve for enticing Chinese users with its many offerings. Thomas notes:

We will offer a lot of exclusive content which means that there will be an alternative to piracy and gradually a clean license environment. As [for] engaging the Chinese audience we will start with the crowd we know best, the students. For over a year now we have been signing deals with universities which allow us a lot, [but] I can’t say more for now.

The Paishou88 e-commerce/m-commerce platform will be enabled with social features, and I’m told there will also be a virtual currency that will fluctuate in value according to demand – and that certainly sounds like an intriguing idea.

In any case, as we have noted many times before, the Chinese e-commerce market is a very big one with over 750 billion RMB (or about $118 billion) spent in 2011. Like the lucrative search market, you don’t need an overwhelming share of the pie to do well in China.