Groupon Poised to Strike a Deal With Chinese Internet Giant Tencent

kara.allthingsd.com

2 pointsdaveambrose3 comments

We operate a daily deal site here in New York City (Scoop St.) but we've been closely examining mainland China from my co-founder's roots in China. The backstory to this potential deal is quite interesting. Tencent invested in DST's last fund which then invested in the market leader for local deals.

Also of interest here is that Tencent usually "builds" rather than "buys" in their strategy. Tencent has already been testing their own local deals in select markets under Tuan QQ for a few months now: http://tuan.qq.com/

I too find that partnership interesting. Mainly because of the fact I can't quite figure out what could Groupon bring to the table for Tencent if they already have Tuan QQ? Am I missing something?

Tencent is largely an engineering driven company. This deal would bring a salesforce into the company while bringing local revenue throughout mainland.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com