Chinese search engine Sogou confirmed Tuesday it would be taken private by tech giant Tencent, in a deal that values the U.S.-listed firm at around 3.5 billion U.S. dollars.

The announcement comes a day after Chinese internet giant Sina Corp, parent company of the country's Twitter-like platform Weibo, said it would be taken private.

Sohu.com, which is Sogou's parent company, said in a statement that the purchase price will be at 9 U.S. dollars per share.

This represents a premium of approximately 56.5 percent to the closing trading price of Sogou on July 24, when the company announced it had received a proposal to go private from Tencent.

If the share purchase is completed, Sohu's subsidiary Sohu.com will receive an aggregate consideration of around 1.18 billion U.S. dollars in cash, and Sohu will no longer have any beneficial ownership interest in Sogou.

U.S.-listed shares of Sogou were up about 3 percent in premarket trading.

Sogou, which was founded in 2005 and debuted on the U.S. market in November 2017, generates revenue mainly through search advertising services.

Goldman Sachs (Asia) is acting as financial adviser to Tencent on the deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Many Chinese companies are opting out of U.S. stock exchanges, following rising tensions between the world's two largest economies, by considering go-private deals or returning to equity markets closer to home.

The U.S. Senate in May passed a bill that could force Chinese companies to delist if they do not meet U.S. accounting standards.

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(With input from agencies)