E-commerce firm Alibaba has bought $3bn worth of shares in China-based bicycle rental platform Ofo from investor Allen Zhu, Technode has reported, citing comments by Zhu’s brother-in-law Ou Chengxiao.
Alibaba acquired the shares at a $10bn valuation, according to Chengxiao, though the stake was likely held by GSR Ventures, the venture capital firm that backed Ofo at series A, B and C stage, for which Zhu is managing director.
Founded in 2014, Ofo runs an app-based bicycle rental platform that had 200 million registered users worldwide as of the end of 2017. It has 10 million bikes in service across 250 cities panning 22 countries.
Alibaba co-led the company’s last disclosed round, a $700m series E that valued it at $3bn, in July 2017 with Hony Capital and Citic Private Equity, investing alongside on-demand ride provider Didi Chuxing and DST Global.
A Financial Times report last month citing two sources familiar with the deal stated Ofo had raised another $1bn from investors including Alibaba, but that report has not been confirmed by the company.
The series E round brought Ofo’s overall funding to more than $1.35bn, its first corporate-backed funding having come in a $130m series C round in late 2016 featuring GSR, Didi Chuxing, Citic PE, Vision Plus Capital, Matrix Partners, Coatue Management and private investor Yuri Milner.
Didi Chuxing, Citic PE, Matrix Partners and Coatue all returned for the company’s $450m series D round in March 2017, which also included DST Global, before Ant Financial, Alibaba’s financial services affiliate, added an undisclosed amount the month after.
– Photo courtesy of Ofo.