renren.com Closes $5.5 Million Round Led By J.H.Whitney

renren.com Ltd, which six months ago launched the first bilingual community site for global Chinese Web surfers, has received a US$5.5 million round of funding lead by the grandfather of venture capital firms, J. H. Whitney & Co.

renren.com’s funding round also included investment from Silicon Valley’s Robertson Feng Technology Associates, regional VC player AsiaTech Ventures Ltd., as a part of its recently announced Asia Java Fund, and from NETica Ventures Limited, a VC concentrating on Internet and IT firms in the Greater China area.

AsiaTech’s Java Fund is gaining particular attention because it is the first of its kind in the region and it has rounded up US$48 million in funds from global corporations such as Sun Microsystems, Japan’s Fujitsu, NTT DoCoMo, Hong Kong’s Pacific Century CyberWorks, Cable & Wireless HKT, and Singapore’s Technopreneurship Investment Fund.

“This investment is good news for renren.com, which has expanded over the last six months into a company of over 40 staff members, and is currently embarking on a high profile pan-Asian print and marketing campaign,” said renren.com’s CEO Michael Robinson.

More importantly, the investment from such renowned venture capitalists has raised renren.com’s profile as a Greater China Internet player.