The New York global fintech moving its technology and innovation headquarters to West Hartford’s former UConn campus has raised $26 million from two Chinese investors.
Seven Stars Cloud Group Inc. (SSC) announced Monday it notched investments from Star Thrive Group Ltd., part of Changan Investment Group, and Sun Seven Stars Entertainment & Media Group (SSS), an affiliate company also led by SSC CEO Bruno Wu.
SSC says it will receive common stock investments of $23 million from Changan Investment Group, an investment firm offering fund management, securities trading and real estate development, and $3 million from SSS, one of China’s largest private media and investment companies.
The investors are already backing a $1.5 billion SSS operations center in Xian, China, which will also house an SSC operations hub. SSC says the center will foster new technological advances and investments for their planned $283 million innovation hub in West Hartford, to which the state has pledged a $10 million forgivable loan tied to a 330-job hiring target.
The center will help the companies connect trade zones throughout Asia, SSC said, adding the hub also furthers its advancements in research, development, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.
As previously reported, SSC’s West Hartford hub will focus on blockchain technology and artificial intelligence.
UConn has agreed to sell its former campus to SSC for $5.2 million, which will maintain its corporate headquarters in New York. The funds from the sale will likely be used for UConn’s capital projects.
Senate Republican leader Len Fasano has criticized the state’s investment, urging Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to explain why his administration backed a loan to a company that Fasano characterized as financially “less stable than originally reported.”
