never heard of $0.10 well that's likely
to change the Chinese technology giant
has quietly become one of the biggest
investors in Silicon Valley in recent
years it's been pouring money into
everything in electric cars to asteroid
mining $0.10 is China's most valuable
listed company and is behind WeChat the
messaging app that combines online
shopping gaming and other features with
nearly a billion users WeChat is now the
largest social media platform in China
$0.10 made headlines earlier this year
when it bought a 5% stake in Tesla a
business partnership aims in part at
exploring ways in which cars can be
connected with the Internet
but the Chinese company is also a backer
of a series of other US companies that
everybody knows of 10 cent owns League
of Legends maker riot games as well as a
stake in Activision Blizzard Inc the
company is also one of the early
investors in snap and made a fortune
when the company went public in 2017 it
also took part in two funding rounds and
lyft investments that in line with the
company's existing strength in mobile
apps since 2011 $0.10 has invested in 41
tech startups in the u.s. joining in
fundraising rounds worth 3.5 billion
dollars that makes the company the
second biggest foreign corporate
investor in Silicon Valley behind only
Samsung from South Korea $0.10 shotgun
approach to investing in Silicon Valley
underscores its fear of missing out on
the next big thing a mindset that has
led the company to develop a taste for
far-fetched ideas and edgy projects such
as in a Vega the startup is building an
augmented reality device built into a
contact lens it now plans to release its
final product first in China and later
in the US
this fearless attitude has led Tencent
to invest in moonshot projects literally
it is investor in worldview enterprises
a firm that wants to use balloons to
lift tourists into space and is also
behind Planetary Resources an asteroid
mining venture backed by Larry Page and
Eric Schmidt top executives at alphabet
a big question in Silicon Valley now is
what will be $0.10 next big investment