Xiaomi, the Chinese consumer electronics startup, just raised $1.1 billion to become

Xiaomi, the Chinese consumer electronics startup, just raised $1.1 billion to become the world’s most highly valued venture-backed startup.

Investors did the deal at a $45 billion valuation, moving it past the $40 billion valuation that San Francisco-based Uber had in its most recent funding.

None of the backers of the Beijing company led by co-founder and CEO Lei Jun are based in the United States but its biggest booster is DST Global, which has been involved in many big late-stage rounds of Bay Area companies, including LendingClub and Houzz.

Another familiar name in the Xiaomi corner is Russian millionaire Yuri Milner, who was also an early investor in Facebook and Alibaba.

Milner knows his way around such hyper-growth and hyper-valued startups and told Bloomberg he thinks Xiaomi is on track to hit a valuation of $100 billion.

So what is Xiaomi and how did it get to this point?

The company’s biggest success is in the smartphone world, where it is projected to sell 100 million devices next year, behind only Apple and Samsung.

Source www.bizjournal.com