Despite being conspicuously missing from a list of 247 approved online video services providers recently licensed by China regulators, Youku or the Chinese YouTube equivalent, has confirmed an additional US$30 million raised in private equity funding and secured a US$10 million equipment loan provided by Western Technology Investment. Maverick Capital led the round and was joined by existing investors Brookside Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, Farallon Capital and Chengwei Ventures.

Youku also announced it has entered into content cooperation partnerships with over a hundred traditional media groups including Shanghai TV, Beijing TV, Jiangsu TV, China Film Group, Universal Music, EMI Music, Huayi Music and a large number of top film, TV and music performers in China.

Launched in December 2006, Youku had completed three rounds of venture financing worth US$40 million by November last year. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, Youku had registered more than 12 million unique visitors and more than 100 million video views a day in December last year.

In a press interview on Sina tech news earlier last month, Youku claimed that it had surpassed close rival Tudou, which counts US company IDG among its backers, as China’s number one video sharing website. Tudou.com, which received a warning from Chinese authorities and briefly suspended operations in March, had raised US$57 million from venture funds in April (to read more on Tudou’s co-founder Marc Van Der Chijs’ views on gaming portal success in China, click here).