PPLive.com is seeking $20 million in the third round from venture capital fund investors after Softbank China Venture Capital, BlueRun Ventures, DFJ and Dragon Ventures invested in the Internet TV broadcaster in the past two years, according to the document, a copy of which was seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

"This round of money would be spent on content acquisition, new products and services development, bandwidth investment, as well as potential M&A," said a potential investor who had been briefed on the private fund-raising plan.

Softbank China Venture Capital is a China-focused fund of Japan's telecoms provider Softbank Corp, and BlueRun Ventures' major investors include cellphone maker Nokia. Dragon Ventures is a China fund of U.S. venture capital firm DFJ.

PPLive.com is ranked No. 2 in terms of online video market share in the world's fastest-growing major economy, according to industry researcher Analysys.

In the third quarter of this year, PPLive had 17.6 percent of market share, compared with 18.1 percent for market leader UUSee and 10.3 percent for smaller rival PPStream, Analysys said in its research report.

In July, PPLive, which has more than 100 million users, inked a content partnership with CCTV.com of state broadcaster China Central Television.

PPLive, which wants to copy the success of YouTube, the world's most popular video-sharing site owned by Google Inc, in China, plans to list about 2010, according to Chinese media reports.

China overtook the United States this year as having the world's largest number of Internet users. At the end of June, it had 253 million Web users, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre.

Video sites are particularly popular among Chinese college students who have limited access to television on campus.

PPLive and other video site rely on advertising for profits, but analysts have warned that corporate advertising spending is set to slow sharply this year.

Source:reuters