ALIBABA is said to have invested US$1.25 billion for 27.7 per cent of domestic food delivery firm Ele.me to become the biggest shareholder in the company, Caixin magazine reported yesterday.
With the investment, Alibaba hopes to turn more than 300 million of its online shoppers into users of its online-to-offline services.
Officials from both companies declined to comment, and Caixin cited unidentified sources for its report.
Market watchers suggest that Ele.me would add to Alibaba's existing offline capabilities and could challenge the merged firm created by daily-deals website Meituan and lifestyle information site Dianping.com
Alibaba and its small financial services arm Ant Financial Services Group have invested 6 billion yuan (US$928 million) in food vendor Koubei, which will become the hub for Alibaba's O2O services.
Source: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/business/consumer/Alibaba-said-to-buy-food-stake/shdaily.shtml
