Internet company Weibo has provided ‘several hundred million’ renminbi (RMB100m = $14.3m) in funding for China-based e-commerce platform Ymatou in the form of series D financing, 36Kr reported on Monday.
The investment was supplied alongside RMB100m in equity financing from a social media influencer known as Niurougem, who promotes food through livestreaming.
Ymatou runs a cross-border online marketplace it claims has 216 million daily active users, and has partnerships in place with buyers spanning more than 80 countries.
The company runs its own logistics service, xLobo, across 15 countries and regions, but its consumer-to-consumer business model restricts the need for retaining large-scale warehousing or delivery resources.
The series D capital will be used to strengthen Ymatou’s video and livestreaming capabilities. It said customers that view its livestreamed broadcasts typically spend almost four times as much as those who do not, and Weibo’s technology is expected to help it in that area.
Ymatou raised approximately $800,000 in 2010 and a further $10m in a series A round three years later, the cash coming from unnamed investors in both cases.
Sailing Capital, an investment vehicle set up by state-owned holding group Shanghai International Group, led Ymatou’s $100m series B round in 2015, before it added more than $100m in a 2017 series C led by China Merchants Capital, part of private equity group China Merchants.
