Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker, is now $1 billion richer after its latest funding round, according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal.
A person familiar with the deal said that the value of the smartphone maker is now over $45 billion – making it more valuable than Uber.
The company has grown in value by nearly four times in the last year and the significant investment in the Chinese tech company has now made it one of the most valuable startups globally.
The funding round is led by All-Stars Investment along with Russian investment firm DST Global and Singapore sovereign-wealth fund GIC (both of which are already investors in the company).
Jack Ma and Yunfeng Capital are also participating.
The funding round will close on Monday.
Xiaomi was founded in 2010 by Lei Jun. It is now the number one smartphone vendor in the Chinese market, which accounted for 37% of global shipments in its second quarter this year, according to the firm Canalys.
Xiaomi had a 14% share in China, up 240% year-to-year – overtaking Samsung for the first time.
It has emerged as a small fish in the market into one of the main players.
Xiaomi is expanding into new markets
Xiaomi plans on expanding beyond China and its going to be a challenge for its expansion plan to succeed.
According to the WSJ, it is going to be hard for the company to do well on a global scale given the fierce competition it will face.
In the second quarter of the year Xiaomi ranked in fifth place in terms of global smartphone sales. Samsung sold over 74 million units and Apple sold more than 32 million units.
