Tencent has picked up a 9 percent stake in Elite Dangerous developer Frontier Entertainment for £17.7 million ($23.1 million).

The Chinese internet giant picked up 3.38 million newly issued ordinary shares for £5.23 ($6.84) per share.

Those new shares represent around 9.9 percent of Frontier's total share capital prior being issued, but will only equate to roughly 9 percent afterwards.

The deal will allow Frontier to gain a foothold in the Chinese market and scale up its various publishing and development operations.

"Tencent is the market leader in the online games industry in China and operating a premium PC games distribution platform, WeGame," said Frontier CEO, David Braben.

"This strategic investment will both help drive our scale up, and improve access and accelerate our growth into the key Chinese market. Tencent will be a powerful partner for Frontier, in what will soon be the world's largest market for entertainment."