(Yicai Global) April 10 -- Bilibili’s shares jumped to an all-time high after the Tencent- and Alibaba-backed video sharing platform said Japan's Sony plans to invest USD400 million to deepen their partnership in animation and gaming.

Bilibili's stock price [NASDAQ: BILI] surged as much as 13.5 percent to USD29.74 in New York yesterday, but fell back to close 2.4 percent up at USD26.83.

Sony's US unit will buy 17.3 million Class Z shares of Bilibili priced at about USD23.10 apiece to indirectly hold a nearly 5 percent stake in the target company, Shanghai-based Bilibili said in a statement yesterday. The deal is expected to close soon, it added.

The move should solidify their partnership, an analyst told Yicai Global.

Since 2014, Bilibili and Tokyo-based Sony unit Aniplex have joined hands in animation licensing, and in 2016 Bilibili became the exclusive China agent for Aniplex's popular mobile game Fate/Grand Order. More recently, their parent companies have teamed on music videos.

Streaming Fate/Grand Order, a free-to-play mobile game, has become an important revenue source for Bilibili, the analyst added.

The new focus is on Bilibili's signature fields. The two parties will create better content and user experiences in animation and games to further meet users' growing demand for culture and entertainment, Chief Executive Chen Rui wrote in the statement.

Before Sony’s investment, Bilibili attracted funds from Chinese tech titans such as Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings. Tencent paid USD320 million to boost its stake to over 12 percent in October 2018, becoming Bilibili's second-largest shareholder, while Alibaba boosted its shareholding to nearly 11 percent in February 2019.

Editor: Emmi Laine