kashing032708.pngAfter Facebook raised the $240 million round from Microsoft last fall that valued it at a shocking-to-many $15 billion valuation, it raised another $60 million from Hong Kong business mogul Li Ka-Shing (pictured).

Today, Marketwatch reports that Ka-Shing is re-upping on his investment with at least another $40 million, presumably at the same valuation.

This could be the start of a major move by Facebook in China. Today, Ka-Shing says that “we could have some synergy between the 3G services of Hutchison and Facebook, so the customers could use Facebook on mobile phones.”3G mobile phone standards allow for large amounts of data to be quickly transferred across phones and networks and have created more opportunities for mobile web services.

Ka-Shing’s company, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, runs everything from major port facilities to mobile services in China and other countries. Its 3G effort appears to be a location-based service, according to its web site on the matter:

“Our mission is to enhance people’s lives — we are creating a service that, upon demand, shows you where you are, what you want and how you want it — and puts it in the palm of your hand. Over time, we hope that this will become an indispensable part of our daily lives.”

As we noted at the time of Ka-Shing’s first investment, Facebook needs a strong ally in China to help it cut deals with local internet service providers. Ka-Shing says he may even invest more in Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook.

So maybe we’re going to see a location-based service that tightly integrates Facebook coming out of China.

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  1. April 20th, 2008
    11:31 pm

    Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing : The Future Of Social Networking - Consolidation or Mass Customization? said:

    [...] Ning raising $60M at a $500M valuation. Beebo recently sold to AOL for $850M. Facebook recently raised more money at a $15 Billion valuation. Valuations are one thing…profits are another. Sometimes the [...]

  2. Xiaonei, the Facebook of China, raises $430M — better funded than Facebook » VentureBeat said:

    [...] be a statement that the company intends to fend off China from Facebook’s advances. Recently, Facebook took $100 million (in two tranches) from Hong Kong Li Ka-Shing, in what is widely considered a strategic move to get help to enter that market. Ka-Shing’s [...]

  3. June 6th, 2008
    9:50 am

    Web 2.0 Việt Nam » Blog Archive » Bão Facebook clone đến từ Trung Quốc said:

    [...] Ngay sau sự xuất hiện của website này, trao lưu viết facebook clone đã bùng nổ với sự xuất hiện của tên tuổi rất có tiếng ở Trung Quốc và dân lập trình web ở Việt Nam cũng nghe tiếng là Comsenz. Hành động “bột phát” này cũng là lẽ thường vì Facebook đã quá thành công với nhiều nguồn đầu tư đến từ nhiều nơi như Microsoft, Li Ka-Shing (Hong Kong). [...]

  4. Stalking your friends could be big business. $3.3 billion location-based social network economy by 2013? » VentureBeat said:

    [...] location-based social networks should soon face serious competition from the current social networking leaders such as Facebook and MySpace. While the mobile upstarts [...]

2 Comments

  1. March 31st, 2008
    11:14 am

    Lasse Larsen said:

    Well, it would maybe be smart to check up PCT/dk2006/000258

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