国在线视频网站土豆网(Tudou.com)说，在最新一轮融资活动中筹集了5,000万美元资金，其中大部分来自新加坡国有投资公司淡马锡控股(Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd.)的一笔投资。
这 家位于上海的公司是淡马锡投资的首个中国互联网媒体公司。淡马锡的投资组合总规模约1,400亿美元，其中包括在新加坡一些大型公司的控股权以及在中国两 家大银行的持股。淡马锡对土豆网投资3,500万美元。土豆网提供在线视频流，包括多渠道同时播出的电视节目和用户生成的内容。淡马锡证实了对土豆网的投 资，不过拒绝进一步置评。
土豆网首席执行长王微在接受《华尔街日报》采访时说，最新一轮筹资是为了扩大业务。自2005年土豆网开始运营以来，已经总计筹资1.35亿美元。王微说，公司将利用这笔资金投资于产品和服务的分化，包括创建更多的原创视频内容、增强自主开发手机应用程序的能力。
他说，我们将自己定位于一家媒体公司，有很多技术需要开发，我们认为这并非短期能完成的，而是一场漫长的马拉松，所以很重要的一点是要拥有强大的实力、考虑到方方面面、确保未来两三年我们仍将处于领先地位。
土豆网和优酷网(Youku.com)是中国最大的两个在线视频网站。
淡马锡的投资组合主要专注于金融服务、电信和运输行业的公司。过去一年中，该公司的很多新投资导向了能源和资源领域。
在截至3月31日的一年中，淡马锡投资40亿新加坡元（合29.6亿美元），并表示寻求增大在亚洲的投资。
中 国的互联网业被认为风险很高，因为该行业要接受多个不同政府机构的监管。所有的互联网公司──包括土豆网、其他在线视频网站、百度和谷歌(Google Inc.)等搜索引擎，以及新浪微博等类似于Twitter的微博网站──都必须满足诸多商业和内容监管要求，才能持有政府发放的许可证。好几次，互联网 公司因没有从其网站上删除敏感内容而受到了处罚。
王微承认，中国的社交媒体有很多的限制，不过他说，我们受到严格监管已经有很长时间了，一直在稳步发展土豆网。他说，无论好坏，在满足监管要求方面，我们有着很强的优势。
土 豆网的一款应用程序可以用于苹果公司(Apple Inc.)的iPad。土豆网正在为iPhone和运行谷歌Android操作系统的手机开发应用程序。王微希望在一个月内，土豆网上的全部3,800万 个视频都可以在手机上观看。他说，这项工作要求大量的资源。他说，为所有这些平台开发应用程序并不容易，因为单单人力资源方面的投资就很巨大了。
王微说，我们认为未来几个月市场将出现爆炸性的增长。再有六个月，你会看到数千万人通过手机观看视频。
Chinese online-video website Tudou.com said it raised $50 million in its latest round of financing, the bulk of which is an investment from Singapore's state-owned investment firm, Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd.
The Shanghai company is the first Internet media company in China to be added to Temasek's roughly $140 billion portfolio, which includes controlling stakes in some of Singapore's biggest companies and stakes in two of China's biggest banks. Temasek invested $35 million in Tudou, which provides streaming online video, including syndicated television shows and user-generated content. Temasek confirmed its investment in Tudou, but declined to comment further.
The latest round of fund raising 'is for us to expand,' said Gary Wang, chief executive of Tudou, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The company, which has raised a total of $135 million since its website went live in 2005, will use the money to invest in differentiating its products and services, including creating more original video content and developing the ability to develop mobile applications in-house, Mr. Wang said.
'We've been positioning ourselves as a media house [and] there's a lot of expertise to be developed … we believe this is not something about the short term. It's going to be a long marathon, so it's very important to be strong and cover all the angles and make sure we will still be in a leading position in two or three years,' he said.
Tudou and Youku.com are the top online-video websites in China.
Temasek's portfolio is largely focused on companies in the financial-services, telecommunications and transportation sectors. In the past year, the firm has directed many of its new investments into energy and resources.
Temasek made four billion Singapore dollars ($2.96 billion) in investments over the year ended March 31, and has said it seeks to increase its exposure in Asia.
The Internet sector is considered risky in China because it is regulated by several different government agencies. All Internet companies including Tudou, other online video websites, search engines like Baidu Inc. and Google Inc., and Twitter-like microblogging websites like Sina Weibo are required to meet a number of commercial and content-regulation requirements in order to maintain a government license. On several occasions, they have been disciplined for failing to remove sensitive content from their websites.
Mr. Wang acknowledged there are 'quite a lot of restrictions' on social media in China, but said 'we have been regulated very closely for quite some time now' and have built Tudou at a 'steady pace.' 'For better or for worse, we are in a pretty solid position in terms of fulfilling regulatory requirements,' he said.
The CEO said Tudou, which has an application that works with Apple Inc.'s iPad, is developing applications for iPhones and handsets running Google's Android operating system. He hopes that all 38 million videos available on Tudou will be available for viewing on its mobile applications within a month, an endeavor that Mr. Wang said requires significant resources. 'It's not easy' to develop for all these platforms, he said, because the investment in human resources alone is significant.
'We believe the market will explode in coming months,' Mr. Wang said. 'Give it another six months, you will see tens of millions of people accessing video' through their mobile devices.