Ant Financial, the payments affiliate of China’s Alibaba Group, is reportedly seeking to raise at least $9bn in a funding round.
The company, which was carved out of e-commerce giant Alibaba seven years, has upped its funding target from $5bn according to a report from Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter.
The fundraising ahead of a planned initial public offering is expected to value the company at about $150bn, the people added. This would be more than double the business’s $60bn valuation at its last funding round in April 2016.
In Ant’s last funding round, which raised $4.5bn, a handful of Chinese state investors such as China Construction Bank and China Investment Corp took stakes in the group.
Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek is also planning to take part in the funding round according to the FT, which cited one person familiar with the matter. However, spokespeople for Ant and Temasek did not respond to request for comment.
Ant offers the Alipay mobile payment service, digital banking and other financial services. One of the main factors behind its vaultion is down to ts oversee expansion plans.
Last year, the company continued to expand its reach outside of China with a $200m investment in South Korean mobile giant Kakao’s finance subsidiary Kakao Pay. Kakao Talk, the firm’s messaging service, counts 48 million users and is installed on as many as 95% of South Korean smartphones.
Ant Financial also purchased Lazada’s payments arm HelloPay. The South-East Asian payments processor will rebrand to Alipay Singapore, Alipay Malaysia, Alipay Indonesia and Alipay Philippines in its respective markets.
The FinTech giant also made waves in the Philippines with an investment in Mynt, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the country’s largest mobile operator, Globe Telecom’s Globe Capital Venture Holdings (GCVHI). It was also interested in buying US money transfer service MoneyGram in an $880m deal. However, the acquisition was blocked by the US government.
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