E-commerce group Alibaba has co-led a $700m round series E round for China-based bicycle sharing service Ofo, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
The round was co-led with Hony Capital, the private equity firm formed by conglomerate Legend Holdings, and Citic Private Equity, a branch of asset management firm Citic, and included on-demand ride platform Didi Chuxing and investment firm DST Global.
Founded in 2014, Ofo operates a service that enables users to rent bikes using a mobile app. It has more 100 million registered users across 150 cities, and was managing roughly 2 million transactions each day at the start of this year.
The company is looking to expand internationally, beginning with the US, UK and Singapore, and aims to build its network of bikes to 20 million across 20 countries by the end of 2017.
Ofo did not disclose a valuation for the round, but Bloomberg reported last month the company was seeking a $3bn valuation for its next round. It had previously raised more than $650m in funding, according to Bloomberg.
Alibaba’s financial services affiliate, Ant Financial, invested an undisclosed amount in Ofo in April 2017, the month after it closed a $450m series D round that was led by DST and included Didi Chuxing, Citic Private Equity, Matrix Partners and Coatue Management.
Ofo had previously secured $130m in series C funding from Didi Chuxing, Citic Private Equity, Coatue, Matrix, Vision Plus Capital, GSR Ventures and angel investor Yuri Milner in October 2016.
The round comes weeks after Ofo’s biggest rival, Mobike, raised $600m in a round led by internet group Tencent and backed by Bocom International, ICBC International, Sequoia Capital, TPG, Hillhouse Capital and Farallon Capital.
– Photo courtesy of Ofo