The new funding marked the technology industry’s single largest round of private financing and surpassed an initial target set by Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group Co., controlled by billionaire Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
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China Investment Corp Capital and CCB Trust, a subsidiary of China Construction Bank Corp, participated in the Series B fundraising, Ant Financial said in a statement.
Ant financial has been making efforts to take Alipay beyond China. It has also started an online lender, MYBank. This has pushed the value of Ant Financial to $60 billion.
Ant Financial is bringing in “strategic partners” from China’s financial sector to help it extend its reach into rural areas of China and fund acquisitions, Ant Financial Vice President Cyril Han said in an interview.
Ant Financial belongs to a list of companies known as FinTech, which refers to Internet-based financial services providers that offer a modern alternative to manual-based banking and commerce solutions.
Existing shareholders such as China Post Group, private-equity firm Primavera Capital Group and China Development Bank Capital contributed to the series B funding. Many of those investors raised their stakes in the latest round. Earlier this year, JD Finance also raised funds about $1.02 billion.
Ant Financial counts at least 140 million rural Chinese people as its clients.
It’s the largest investment in a tech company to date, surpassing the $3 billion that Uber rival Didi Kuaidi pulled in a year ago.
Investors in the round include a Chinese sovereign-wealth fund and the country’s biggest insurers. Firms such as Ant Financial and Chinese ride-sharing app Didi Kuaidi Joint Co., valued at more than $25 billion, have had little trouble raising capital at growing valuations. It is planning an initial public offering of its own.
The company is an affiliate of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, and it hasn’t been shy about its big ambitions since launching in 2014.
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Ant was spun off from Alibaba Group prior to the latter’s record $25B New York IPO in September 2014. The proceeds will also likely be used to make further investments into its other businesses.
