Baidu is charging up its video content push after iQiyi, its YouTube-style service in China, raised $1.53 billion from the sale of convertible notes to investors. The deal appears to end speculation that the firm was mulling an IPO.
iQiyi, which had on offer to go independent fall through last year, raised the capital from a number of top-name investors including Hillhouse Capital, Boyu Capital, Run Liang Tai Fund, IDG Capital, Everbright-IDG Industrial Fund and Sequoia Capital. Baidu itself invested $300 million into the service, too.
Baidu CEO Robin Li and iQiyi CEO Yu Gong led a deal to spin iQiyi out into its own business last year, however it failed to progress and collapsed in July. Nonetheless, speculation over its future and funding options persisted throughout 2016. In December, Baidu denied reports of a…