Tencent and JD.com invest in Leshi's smart-TV unit

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Technology giants Tencent, JD.com and TCL are among investors in Chinese TV maker New Leshi Zhixin, its controlling shareholder Leshi Internet Information and Technology said on Wednesday.

Affiliates of Tencent Holdings, JD.com Inc, TCL Corp and Suning.com Co have agreed to each invest 300 million yuan ($48 million) in the manufacturer of smart TVs among backers investing a combined total of up to 3 billion yuan, Leshi said in a Shenzhen stock exchange filing.

The new funds will help with a capital shortage at the company and boost operations, Leshi said.

Leshi's holding in New Leshi Zhixin will be diluted to 33.46 percent from 40.31 percent after the transactions, but it will remain as the biggest shareholder.

New investors such as Tencent and JD.com will hold 2.56 percent stakes, the filing said.

Leshi's parent LeEco was once China's Netflix-to-Tesla contender but ran into a cash crunch in late 2016 after expanding too fast.

Leshi has a market capitalization of about 20 billion yuan and had debt of 4.7 billion yuan at the end of September.

(Reporting by Meg Shen; Editing by David Goodman)

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