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Outlet profile

36Kr

Chinese commercial tech media

Owned byPublicly traded on NASDAQ (ticker: KRKR); major shareholders include Ant Financial (Ant Small and Micro Financial Services Group, ~16%), Matrix Partners China, China Securities, and China Merchants Group VC; insiders and co-founders hold significant stakes
FundingPrimarily online advertising (~78% of revenue); also enterprise value-added services and subscriptions; total 2024 revenue was approximately RMB 231 million (~$31.7 million USD), down sharply from prior years
On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

36Kr was founded in December 2010 by Liu Chengcheng, then a student at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, who started it as a personal blog covering tech apps and gadgets. The company's name is a nod to the element Krypton (atomic number 36), reflecting founder Liu's admiration for Superman. It quickly attracted investment from Alibaba Group, Matrix Partners China, Ant Financial, China Securities, and China Merchants Group's venture arm, evolving from a simple blog into a full media and services platform. In 2014 it launched Kr Space, a co-working and startup incubator network, and in 2015 it added a financing matchmaking platform for startups and investors, followed by a subscription-based VC data product called Jing Data in 2016. By late 2017 the platform claimed a global readership of over 150 million. On November 8, 2019, 36Kr debuted on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker KRKR, raising $20 million, though its stock fell sharply on its first day of trading — reflecting investor uncertainty about its monetization model. The company's revenue declined significantly between 2023 and 2024 across all segments as China's tech advertising market contracted. As a commercial media company in China, 36Kr must operate within CCP regulatory boundaries, but it is not a state-owned outlet and has not been officially designated as a foreign mission or state media entity by U.S. authorities; its editorial focus remains on business, investment, and technology rather than political commentary.

Sources

  1. 36Kr – Wikipedia
  2. China's news and data site 36Kr tumbles in its stock market debut – TechCrunch
  3. 'China's TechCrunch' 36Kr files for Nasdaq listing – Nikkei Asia
  4. 36Kr Holdings Inc. Reports Financial Results for Fiscal Year 2024 – GlobeNewswire
  5. 36Kr Holdings Annual Report 20-F 2024 – SEC EDGAR
  6. KRKR Ownership Structure – Fintel
  7. 36Kr Holdings IPO Prospectus 424B4 – SEC EDGAR
  8. 36Kr Holdings Inc. Company Profile – Yahoo Finance

Profile compiled 2026-06-30; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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