Koubei, the local services spinout of China-based e-commerce firm Alibaba, has raised $1.1bn in equity funding, Alibaba disclosed in an earnings report yesterday.
The round was co-led by private equity firm Silver Lake, alternative asset manager CDH Investments, investment firm Primavera Capital and Yunfeng Capital, the private equity and venture capital firm co-founded by Alibaba chairman Jack Ma.
Temasek and Khazanah Nasional, investment institutions owned by the governments of Singapore and Malaysia respectively, also participated, Silver Lake managing partner Ken Hao told the New York Times.
Koubei was formed in mid-2015 as a joint venture between Alibaba and its financial services affiliate Ant Financial, and operates as a listings platform for local services and businesses such as restaurants, travel, accommodation and shops.
Alibaba and Ant Financial each invested just over $480m in the company at the time of its establishment, at which time it also absorbed Alibaba’s online food delivery business, Taodiandian, together with several of Ant Financial’s services for offline merchants.
Koubei was responsible for approximately RMB73bn ($10.6bn) of revenue transactions made through Alipay, Ant Financial’s online payment platform, in 2016. People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg in October 2016 that it was raising funding at an $8bn valuation.