Type of site Video hosting service Owner The AcFun Admins Alexa rank 594 (27 March 2016) | Available in Chinese Website www.acfun.tv Commercial Yes | |
AcFun is a Chinese video sharing site which began as an ACG themed video sharing site based on Sina Video created in June 2007. Later in 2008 the site relaunched with a Niconico-style player. The site does not store videos itself, and uses videos from other video sharing sites. Now the site supports both submitting articles and videos from Youku, QQ Video, Sina Video, Tudou Video or other video sharing sites by the users.
AcFun changed its domain from .cn to .tv in July 2011. The website also attempted to change it from .tv to .com in the summer of 2014, but soon went back to its original domain. AcFun is awarded "Specialty Website of 2010" by Guangzhou-based New Weekly Magazine. AcFun is mentioned in an article of The New Yorker in April, 2013.
AcFun received a US$50 million series funding from Youku Tudou Inc. in 2015, and has completed a US$60 million funding round led by Softbank China Venture Capital on 14 January, 2016. Meanwhile, Mo Ran(Simplified Chinese:莫然) has been named CEO of AcFun, and the previous CEO Sun Min(Simplified Chinese:孙旻) would be the new president who would take charge of the business development. On July 1, 2016, Mo Ran left the position due to personal reasons, and Liu Yanyan (Simplified Chinese: 刘炎焱) became the new CEO.
The discussion boards on AcFun are based on an imageboard website format, as a clone of Futaba Channel. In adherence to mainland Chinese law, the boards are to contain strictly safe for work (non-pornographic) material. The website also features a wiki which covers site-related topics.