Snowball Finance, the China-based, investment-focused social network also known as Xueqiu, has received $120m in a series D round featuring financial services provider Ant Financial, 36Kr reported today.
Founded in 2010, Snowball began by assessing company valuations but now focuses on running an online platform known as Xueqiu that provides information on investment instruments such as wealth management, equity investments, insurance and real estate.
The platform has some 12 million monthly active users which communicate with each other and pool advice and opinions, and Snowball also oversees a trading platform known as Danjuan Fund and a private equity fund creation vehicle called Xueqiu Private Equity.
Snowball will use the series D capital for product development and recruitment, as it looks to enhance its online trading services. Ant Financial, e-commerce group Alibaba’s financial services affiliate, will help the company expand its wealth management offering.
The funding follows a $40m series C round led by social and financial technology media company Renren in 2014 that also featured venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Morningside Capital.
Sequoia had initially supplied $3.2m in series A funding for Snowball in 2011, and joined Morningside for a $10m series B round two years later.