China-based dockless bicycle rental platform Ofo raised $866m in equity and debt financing today from a consortium led by e-commerce group Alibaba.
The round also featured Ant Financial, Alibaba’s financial services affiliate, as well as Haofeng Group, Tianhe Capital and Junli Capital.
Ofo has not clarified the ratio of equity and debt in the round. Alibaba reportedly supplied $280m in debt financing for the company last week but Ofo has not confirmed the two transactions are related.
Founded in 2014, Ofo operates a network of dockless bikes in 250 cities across 21 countries. Its fleet currently consists of more than 10 million bicycles which are used for a total of more than 32 million rides per day.
The round follows press reports in December 2017 that Ofo was facing financial pressure. A prospective $1bn round led by Alibaba reported at the time fell through because another shareholder, ride hailing service Didi Chuxing, refused to sign off on the terms.
Ofo reportedly secured $79m in financing from Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital, an affiliate of Ant Financial, last month, when Alibaba subsidiary Zhejiang Tmall Network also supplied $200m. Ofo mortgaged its bikes in both deals.
Alibaba reportedly acquired $3bn of Ofo stock from VC firm GSR Ventures in January 2018, having co-led a $700m series E round in July 2017 that increased the company’s overall funding to more than $1.35bn.
The series E round was led by Hony Capital and Citic Private Equity (Citic PE) and also featured Didi Chuxing and DST Global.
Didi Chuxing had already backed a $450m series D round for Ofo in March 2017 that included Citic PE, Matrix Partners, Coatue and DST Global. Ant Financial provided an extension of undisclosed size the following month.
Ofo also raised $130m in series C funding from Didi Chuxing, GSR, Citic PE, Vision Plus Capital, Matrix, Coatue and private investor Yuri Milner in 2016.