Cisco to sink $16m in cloudy Chinese joint venture with TCL Corp

Sets up $80m commercial cloud firm with China electronics bods

Cisco is planning to set up a new $80m commercial cloud joint venture with Chinese electronics firm TCL Corp, according to a company filing.

TCL told Shenzhen Stock Exchange (translated by Google) that Cisco would invest $16m in the new firm and hold a 20 per cent stake, while TCL takes care of the rest of the investment for the remaining stake.

The firms will make their investments in three stages, with both companies needing to meet conditions of the agreement before each tranche of cash is paid.

The new company, which is still in the process of being set up and hasn’t been named yet, will take four directors from Yongfu Investment, a TCL group company, and one from Cisco.

TCL said that the cloudy venture would build data centres in China and market cloud-based video communication and collaboration products to public organisations, SMEs and corporations. The firm will promise real-time data delivery, remote collaboration and other commercial cloud products, for which it will build a public cloud service platform.

Cisco had not returned a request for comment at the time of publication. ®