Ele.me and Koubei, the recently merged local services subsidiaries of e-commerce group Alibaba, have raised $4bn at a $30bn valuation from investors including telecommunications firm SoftBank, Reuters has reported.
SoftBank provided its share of the funding through its Vision Fund, joining Alibaba and its financial services affiliate Ant Financial as well as private equity group Primavera Capital, people with knowledge of the situation told Reuters. The round is expected to formally close later this month.
The capital was provided to support the merger last month of Ele.me, the portfolio company Alibaba fully acquired in April 2018 at a $9.5bn valuation, and Koubei, the Alibaba spinoff that secured $1.1bn from investors including Primavera in January 2017 at an $8.8bn valuation.
The merged company will provide mobile users with access to a wide range of local services including retail, food delivery, travel and accommodation.
Food delivery and restaurant listings specialist Ele.me served more than 167 million users in the year ending June 30, and the companies jointly linked to more than 3.5 million merchants over the same period.
In addition to Primavera, the 2017 round included private equity firms Silver Lake and Yunfeng Capital, alternative asset manager CDH Investments, the Singapore state-owned Temasek and the Malaysian government-owned Khazanah Nasional.
Earlier reports suggested SoftBank and Alibaba were set to combine for a $3bn investment in the as-yet unnamed joint company.
