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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s been a while since we heard from Snow, the Snapchat clone app in Asia that\u00a0Facebook once tried to buy, but today the company behind it has scooped up a $50 million investment from SoftBank and Sequoia China.<\/p>\n
Snow was started by Naver, the Korean firm behind popular messaging app Line, and it had proven popular in Japan, Korea, China and other markets in Asia thanks to a focus on localized filters, stickers and features. Not to mention Snapchat\u2019s famous lack of effort in Asian markets.<\/p>\n
The Snow app has changed significantly since we last wrote about it, however. It\u2019s no longer a Snap clone.<\/p>\n
A major updated that dropped last week removed Snow\u2019s user-to-user communication features and turned it into a dedicated selfie camera app. Without chat, the app\u00a0doubles down on filters, stickers, augmented reality (AR), and other selfie-related features to make photos and other media that can be exported to social networks or chat groups.<\/p>\n
Snow users can now, for example, record a video set to music from artists that include Charlie Puth. There\u2019s the usual array of photo filters, alongside a GIF maker and Instagram-like Boomerang feature.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It is also aiming to\u00a0build partnerships and localize its service in China. Outside of Snow, Snow Corp also owns camera apps\u00a0Foodie and\u00a0B612, which it acquired from Line, so they may also be pushed in China as standalone apps, although the tech behind them is also shared with the core Snow app.<\/p>\n
A Snow representative told TechCrunch that the app now has over 200 million downloads on iOS and Android. The company doesn\u2019t break out specific data for each market, but it said that China is its largest market. In January 2017,\u00a0we reported that Snow had 40-50 million monthly active users\u00a0but there\u2019s no further update on the MAU front for now.<\/p>\n
SoftBank \u2014 and this is SoftBank Group not the Vision Fund \u2014 and Sequoia have bought up 20 percent of the shares of Snow\u2019s China business unit via this deal.\u00a0Line is among Snow\u2019s other backers,\u00a0via two investments.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: Techcrunch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been a while since we heard from Snow, the Snapchat clone app in Asia that\u00a0Facebook once tried to buy, but today the company behind it has scooped up a $50 million investment from SoftBank and Sequoia China. Snow was started by Naver, the Korean firm behind popular messaging app Line, and it had proven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":393802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106],"tags":[16340,14434,11578],"yoast_head":"\n