A HARVARD University-educated designer has turned his content marketing platform into a unicorn, helped by investors betting on enterprise software as the next big opportunity in China’s tech industry.

Tezign, which connects designers with businesses, completed the first tranche of its Series D round led by Temasek Holdings Pte, boosting its valuation to more than US$1 billion, the startup said. It received about US$40 million from the Singaporean state investment firm and other backers.

Founded in 2015 by Fan Ling, who has a doctorate from Harvard, Tezign is a mash-up of online recruiter Upwork Inc. and Adobe Inc.’s marketing cloud: it matches creative talent with brands and marketers, and customers also use its platform to manage their digital content.

The Shanghai-based outfit is among a crop of startups aspiring to be the next Oracle Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc. for China, a nascent US$12 billion arena for enterprise software.

“There is a clear trend about the digital transformation of businesses in China,” Fan said.

“Brands who used to rely on big tech companies for sales now want to build their own consumer database, and have power over content production and distribution. Every brand can operate like a mini version of Alibaba.”

Investors have been turning away from the once red-hot consumer internet sector since nearly a year ago.

Instead, they are plowing money into enterprise software and advanced technologies like chips and autonomous driving — key initiatives in China’s drive to achieve technology self-sufficiency.

Tezign’s latest fundraising comes after it completed in March a US$100 million Series C round led by Sequoia China and Temasek.

Last month, digital signature startup Esign also hit unicorn status after raising 1.2 billion yuan (US$188 million) from venture firms including Sequoia China and IDG Capital.

(SD-Agencies)