A Funny Way To Fortune

Venture capital is constantly scouting for new opportunities and a budding comedienne whose cottage industry of producing and posting video clips of one-woman sketches has proven that a laughing matter can be serious business as well.

I had never heard of Papi Sauce until the news broke that she got an infusion of 12 million yuan ($1.85 million) in venture capital. Reports put her value at 300 million yuan.

Papi Sauce is the online handle of Jiang Yilei, a 29-year-old graduate student at the Central Academy of Drama. She has produced, starred in and released dozens of short videos in which she plays a variety of characters and lampoons things like dating rituals.