Qiyi, which received $50 million in VC from Hulu-backer Providence Equity Partners, today begun beta testing its online video site. Parent company, Chinese-language search giant Baidu, said the beta term should last about a month and will entail allowing a limited number of users access to the site to watch videos and leave comments.
The site, which launched Feb. 24, still hasn't declared whether it will be ad supported or a for-pay model. It has said it would spend more than $29 million to acquire content; it already has rights to some 2,000 movies and TV episodes.
Baidu, meanwhile, has benefited of late from Google's battles with China, seeing its stock price climb in recent weeks. Google has been at odds with China since a January attack on its site. The company shuttered its operations there this month.
For more:
- see this TMT China article
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