Chinese, Indian firms land largest mobile VC investments

With Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android dominating the market, it’s easy to think of Silicon Valley as the centre of the mobile universe. But when it comes to the industry’s largest venture capital investments during the first half of the year, the top companies were based outside the US.

Xiaomi Tech, the Beijing-based maker of cell phones, secured the largest investment with $216 million, according to a recent report from Rutberg & Co. India’s Sistema Shyam, a mobile services provider, followed with $158 million in funding.

Out of the 25 largest venture capital investments in mobile, Chinese companies claimed three spots and India accounted for two. Still, American companies dominated the rest of the list with 17 companies, the vast majority of them based in California. The top 25 specialise in everything from mobile payments to advertising to social networking.

Investments in mobile rose 30 per cent to $3.9 billion globally in the first half of 2012, up from $3 billion in the same period of last year, according to Rutberg, an investment bank. Mobile-related investments accounted for 46.3 per cent of all technology investments by venture capital firms in the first half of the year. That’s up from 16.9 per cent in 2009.