Shanda Group is a privately-owned multinational investment firm. With offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York and Redwood City, the firm invests in public markets, real estate and venture capital, focusing on companies in the fields of healthcare, financial services, media, and technology. The company was established in December 1999 as Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited, an online gaming company known for publishing and operating games such as The World of Legend and Magical Land. By 2004 Shanda was the largest online game company in China, and its listing on the NASDAQ that year under ticker SNDA was the largest IPO for a Chinese internet company in the United States. Shanda Interactive later diversified and its gaming unit spun off in 2009, raising $1.04 billion in an IPO (GAME). Shanda Group was taken private in 2012 by its founders, and by 2017 it had $8 billion in net assets under management. History 1999-2003: Start in online gaming Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited was founded in December 1999 by Chen Tianqiao, Chrissy Luo, and Chen Danian. With headquarters in Shanghai, and USD $60,000 in startup capital, the company also raised $3 million to focus on online cartoons, gaming and virtual communities. Settling on online gaming, in 2001 the company used the final $300,000 of its startup funds to buy the Chinese rights to Legend of Mir II, licensing the game from the South Korean company WeMade Soft. Published in China that September, the game began to turn a profit after two months. Expanding out of Shanghai city by city, Shanda Interactive shared its revenue with regional telecommunications companies. Because home internet access in China was limited at the time, Shanda Interactive began constructing a network of around 200,000 internet cafes. The company also began selling pre-paid cards to purchase game time, eventually establishing around 400,000 retail outlets. Shanda continued to license international online games after Mir II, and at the end of 2002 the company had $42 million in revenue and $17 million in net profits, with an average of 280,000 people playing its games simultaneously. Shanda ceased partnering with WeMade in 2003 after a dispute over sharing profits on Legend of Mir 2, developing its own game The World of Legend in-house. WeMade considered the game to be a copy of Mir 2 and sued, reaching a settlement in 2009. 2004-2005: IPO and acquisitions Legend of Mir 2 and World of