Thanks to their low price-high spec strategy and excellent Marketing Xiaomi has achieved to become the third largest smartphone producer worldwide in a breeze. Now all this is paying off big time: Xiaomi is raising an astonishing $1.5 Billion round in capital. That is the biggest deal in private financing since Facebook in 2011!

The negotiations for the deal are not finalized yet, but according to CNBC reports investors include the Russian Internet company DST. DST other famous investments include Facebook, Airbnb and Alibaba and it seems like they investing in Xiaomi at a valuation of more then 40 Billion USD.

When the deal goes through, Xiaomi which is barely 4 years old, would be more valuable then Lenovo and Sony combined. At this valuation Xiaomi would be even worth double as much as Uber. Xiaomi staying traditional though, is taking most of the financing from Asia based investors and not Sillicon Valley based VC Firms.

A large amount of that investment, 1 Billion USD, will go into expanding Xiaomi’s own TV Content. Xiaomi has hired Chen Tong, the former chief editor of Sina.com, for a complete revamp of their Internet Video Business model according to Xinhua news.

After this huge round of investment, many believe that the next step for Xiaomi will be an IPO: Xiaomi, one of the large Chinese technology companies, valued at $50 billion would tap the IPO market next year,” wrote South China Morning Post in Hong Kong for example. Already the company is seen by many investors as the next chinese AliBaba. AliBaba just completed a very successful 25 Billion USD IPO in the US.

According to IDT Xiaomi’s smartphone sales, with 17.3 million smartphones sold and doubling profits last quarter makes Xiaomi the Number 3 worldwide. When the deal goes through, this 1.5 Billion USD investment, would be the largest investment raised by any VC backed Chinese Company (outside IPO)

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