Ant Financial, the payments affiliate of China’s Alibaba Group, has raised $14bn in its Series C funding round.
The financing round includes an RMB tranche raised by Ant Financial from domestic investors and a USD tranche raised by Ant. Singapore’s GIC and Temasek, as well as Malaysia’s Khazanah Nasional all participated in the latest round. Warburg Pincus, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Silver Lake, General Atlantic, The Carlyle Group, Janchor Partners, Discovery Capital Management and Primavera Capital also took part.
Ant’s Series C round has closed at more than the $10bn previously reported. It brings the company’s valuation to $150bn according to a report by Forbes, which cited an unnamed source. This marks a big increase from Ant Financial’s previous valuation of $60bn, when the company raised $4.5bn in 2014.
Eric Jing, executive chairman and CEO of Ant Financial, said, “We are pleased to welcome these investors as partners, who share our vision and mission, to embark on our journey to further promote inclusive finance globally and bring equal opportunities to the world. We are proud of, and inspired by, the transformation we have affected in the lives of ordinary people and small businesses over the past 14 years. Now, with the help of our partners, we are going to accelerate our strategy.
“We are dedicated to building an open ecosystem with all our partners in China and beyond. We will continue to invest in technology and innovation in order to serve unmet financial needs of people everywhere and to enable them to benefit from the development of the digital economy.”
With investment onboard, the company will continue to invest in developing its blockchain, AI, security, IoT and computing capabilities to upgrade its global technology platform for the next generation.
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.
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