Starbucks’ public wifi provider in China gets $49M investment from Tencent, Dianping

WiWide, a Chinese startup that provides public wifi networks to stores and restaurants, has received an RMB 300 million (US$49 million) series C funding round from Tencent and Dianping, according to TechNode.

Over 500 domestic and international franchises use WiWide in China, including Starbucks, Burger King, and several airports. Its advertising clients include Jaguar, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Nokia, Lenovo, and HTC, whose ads get pushed to customers once they connect. Altogether, the company runs over 30,000 hotspots.

WiWide offers an end-to-end solution, meaning it provides the routers and other hardware, network architecture, professional installation, and a dashboard application for businesses to keep track of connected customers.

WiWide has been working with Tencent since March this year as a major service provider for the latter’s WeChat wifi connection program. The feature allows WeChat users to connect to a local wifi hotspot by following a business’ public WeChat account. Those stores, malls, hospitals, hotels, and restaurants can then push alerts and promotions to connected customers through WeChat.

Dianping is China’s most popular Yelp-like listings portal for restaurant reviews and other services, which also sells daily deals. Tencent bought a 20 percent stake in Dianping in February this year. More details about Dianping and WeChat’s integration of WiWide are expected in the coming weeks.

Xiaomi led WiWide’s undisclosed series B round last year, while its series A came from Greenwoods Investment in 2012.