Alibaba just reported a very impressive quarter of business , but there was a small nugget of notable funding news tucked away in its announcement. Koubei , an Alibaba affiliate company focused on enabling local commerce, closed a $1.1 billion financing round this month.
The funding was led by Silver Lake, CDH Investments, Yunfeng Capital and Primavera Capital, Alibaba said. It isn’t clear what date it was completed other than it happened in January.
In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that Koubei was in the process of raising $1 billion, but this is the first time it has been confirmed. The Journal claimed Koubei would be valued at nearly $8 billion, but we haven’t been able to verify that yet.
Koubei is a joint venture founded in 2015 by Alibaba and Ant Financial, an Alibaba offshoot that manages its Alipay service and other financial tech initiatives. The idea behind it is to generate business for local retailers by bringing them online, while also offering new commerce opportunities for consumers. For example, helping a local pizza chain reach new customers or making a pop grocer more accessible to people with limited time to go in person.
