The company has now built up a massive amount of funding for its efforts to fund its next steps.
Xiaomi recently announced that its latest round of funding had closed at about $1 billion, and now it is going to take that money and pour it into efforts to open up mobile technology startups in India, as well as companies focused on connected devices and content aggregation.
The company is working on launching its own startup environment in India, comparable to what it accomplished in China.
In fact, mobile technology startups in India are included among the top priorities for Xiaomi in 2015. According to the head of Xiaomi India, Manu Jain, “We may co-develop, invest or launch their products. We have discussed with a few startups so far.” At the same time that these statements were released, the company declined to make any specific mention of the names of some of the startups that would be launched, or the size of the investment that it would specifically be making.
The company already labels itself as being a mobile technology and e-commerce business, not just a handset manufacturer.
Xiaomi has previously poured investments into Chinese startups that are focused on parts of the tech industry including wearable technology (such as in its fitness band), a video website, and in a smart light bulbs effort.
According to a Convergence Catalyst partner, Jayant Kolla, “Startups would find it lucrative to work with Xiaomi versus other corporates, as it is agile and has been able to grow, coupling the scale brought forward by both the internet and mobile era.” That firm is the Indian branch of one of Xiaomi’s most valuable startups on the globe and which managed to sell a million devices in the country in well under half of a year.
At the time that this article was written, Xiaomi was being valued at about $45 billion, and it has every intention to grow this year through its mobile technology and other startup investments in India. Though its past has been greatly based on smartphones, those are clearly only the beginning of what it has up its sleeves as it progresses into the future.
According to the Workforce Institude director at Kronos, Joyce Maroney, it is widely believed that wearables will “take off in the workplace before the home because devices such as smart watches, intelligent ID badges, and fitness and health monitors can provide organizations with uncharted data collection points to greatly improve safety, productivity, collaboration, and overall workplace effectiveness.”