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Joseph Chen attends a session at the New Economy Summit in Tokyo, Japan, on April 10, 2014.... [+]
Chinese social networking site
All of these new investments led by CEO Joseph Chen have been far afield from its core business in social networking, and most of these deals are in the U.S. Chen, throughout his entrepreneurial career, has been an empire builder, acquiring and investing in related tech startups and also divesting businesses that are not going anywhere. Renren itself was built mostly from a combination of acquired or invested in sites.
Renren plans to invest some $500 million in financial tech, and has already invested nearly half that amount, although the NYSE-listed company is investing in other tech areas, too.
Chen's latest investment in San Mateo-based stock trading site Motif is one in a series of those bets on financial tech. In mid-January 2015, Renren led a $40 million financing for the four-year old Motif, which has raised some $120 million from Ignition Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Foundation Capital.
A look at earlier tech startup investments made by Renren include:
* a $31 million lead investment in crowd-funding real estate site Fundrise in May 2014.
* a $10 million investment led by DCM with Renren, Azure Capital Partners and VC Tim Draper in private social messaging app Yik Yak in Atlanta in June 2014.
* a $10 million investment in November 2014 in GoGoVan, a van hailing app run out of Hong Kong with plans to expand its Uber-like service throughout Asia.
* a $72 million investment in student loans service Social Finance Inc. led by Baseline Ventures and joined by DCM and Renren in September 2012.
Having Renren on board as an investor helps these tech startups gain a competitive edge in China, where most of them expect to expand.
It's interesting to note that several of these tech deals have been made with Renren's early venture backer, DCM and board member David Chao.
