China's Tencent Holdings Ltd has invested $50 million in Kik Interactive, a Canadian mobile message company that's now valued at more than $1 billion after the raise. It's now in bid to become the “Wechat of the West”.

Tencent has grown into one of China's largest and most used Internet service portals. Its featured Internet products include QQ Instant Messenger and Wechat, most of which have thousands of users. And the number continues to climb. But the vast majority of users are in China. The company has not yet set a firm foothold in the U.S. market.

Kik, on the other hand, faces stiff competition with players such as Snapchapt and Whatsapp joining the mobile chat market. It is speculated that this investment is a springboard for the Waterloo, Ontario-based company on becoming a highlight amongst competitors.

“We said we wanted to be the WeChat of the West,” Ted Livingston, Kik’s founder and chief executive, said in an interview. “To have WeChat come in and say, ‘Yep, we think you can do it,’ is very satisfying.”