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Tencent makes a play for China’s Snapchat generation with $20M investment in Blink

Tencent has made a new social play in the same vein as Snapchat to appease China’s “post-90s” youths. The web giant made a fresh US$20 million series A investment into Blink, a new photo sharing and messaging app out of China. Sequoia Capital, H Capital, ZhenFund, and Innovation Works also participated in the round, according to Techweb. Tencent became king of China’s online social messaging sphere with the mass adoption of QQ Messenger and kept the throne when it unleashed WeChat. But even though QQ earlier this year boasted a record 200 million concurrent users and WeChat’s growth is only now starting to show signs of saturation, the web giant is actively looking for the next big thing for young people who no longer think WeChat is cool. Blink, which is available in both Chinese and English (although the English can be a bit rough at times) works like this: the camera comes on as soon as the app is opened. Thumbnail images of all the user’s friends line the right side. Click one of them to snap a photo or hold to take a 16-second video, then add some MS Paint-style graffiti, text, and an audio message. When the recipients get it, they can add on to the photo with their own embellishments and send it back. The photos and videos disappear after they’re swiped away, but screenshots are allowed and senders can choose to save the original image to their phone. There’s no history of any chat dialog. It’s a fun and easy-to-use app, but the image editing options are perhaps a bit too simple for many users. Brush strokes only come in one size, and text is always white, centered, and in the same font. There are no filters, stickers or other fun effects to pick from.

Techweb reports the app claims 200,000 active users.

Tencent contributed to US-based Snapchat’s US$60 million funding round last year.

Blink is available for free on both iOS and Android.