MORRISON & FOERSTER PRESS RELEASE
Morrison & Foerster (MoFo) represented MeMeStar, an independent mobile data services provider based in China, in its sale to SINA.com, a leading Nasdaq-listed Chinese portal, for a purchase price of US$20.8 million in cash and SINA shares. DragonTech Ventures, a Greater China focused venture capital fund, whose sponsor and anchor investor is the Shanghai government-backed Shanghai Industrial Group, was the leading VC investor in the company.
MoFo Hong Kong office’s managing partner Robert Woll handled the negotiations and MoFo’s team included Jun Deng, associate from the Hong Kong office and Steve Toronto, managing partner of the Beijing office. The transaction was intensively negotiated over the Christmas and New Year holidays and announced on January 6, 2003. The deal represents the first successful exit for DragonTech Ventures. In addition, the transaction marks an aggressive expansion move for Sina.com into the wireless arena, one of the fastest-growing sectors in China. MeMeStar has two million paying users and has grown this customer base among Chinese youth in the last two years, since its founding by Song Li, an ex-Morgan Stanley banker.