Remember Han Han, China’s most brazen blogger? His startup just raised $9m

Photo by allogo

If you’ve only been following China’s tech scene for a few years, you might be forgiven for never having heard of Han Han. But there was a time not so long ago when his was the most famous name on China’s web. And why not? The young author had broken records with his anti-establishment books, and his thoughtful (and very political) blog was raising eyebrows across the world and attracting millions and millions of views in China. Oh, and did I mention that in addition to being a successful author and a hugely popular blogger, he’s also a professional race-car driver? Plus, he’s pretty handsome. That never hurts.

Anyway, in 2010, Han Han tried to launch a magazine called Party. It was massively successful, with its first issue selling over a million copies, but Han Han struggled to release subsequent issues thanks to problems with China’s censors – the stories and art he wanted to publish were just too controversial. Eventually, the magazine was scrapped, and in 2012 Han Han somewhat surprisingly teamed up with Tencent to launch an online magazine called ONE with a novel concept: one new picture, story, question, and thing for readers to look at every day.

It got an app later that year, but after that, Han Han and ONE kind of fell off the public radar. His once-famous blog hasn’t seen a substantive update in over two years.

Han Han and the new ONE

But Han Han hasn’t been doing nothing. ONE is still around, although it’s primarily a mobile app now and as far as I can tell the Tencent affiliation seems to be gone. It’s built up a readership of more than 30 million users who boost it to millions of daily views. But according to Chinese tech news site Lieyunwang, Han Han and ONE are now preparing for a transition, and they’ve just raised a US$9 million series A to make that happen.

The investment comes from VC firm China Growth Capital (which, coincidentally, is also an investor in this cool Chinese smart bike startup). ONE plans to use the money to become a broader media platform, with the biggest changes being adding support for audio and video content. Among other new features, readers will soon be able to listen to ONE’s stories, audiobook-style. The company is also putting increasing emphasis on the development of IP, and it hopes to sign a hundred new authors become a content channel for book and television publishers over the next couple of years.

Whether ONE can make a bigger splash in China’s digital media industry remains to be seen. But even though he’s been out of the limelight for a while, it seems unwise to bet against Han Han. It was only a few years ago that this man was basically the king of China’s internet. Who’s to say he doesn’t have the entrepreneurial chops to do it again?