Ant Financial operates Alipay and offers digital banking and investment services, claiming to serve roughly 500 million consumers in China and a global footprint of 870 million consumers. The company posted about $1.4 billion in profit over the last year. Ant has been expanding overseas via investments, joint ventures and new businesses across multiple Asian markets. The firm plans to use new capital to extend its global expansion, deepen presence in non-China markets, develop technology and hire. Alibaba spun Ant off before its 2014 IPO and recently took an option to own 33 percent of Ant's shares. Ant previously raised $4.5 billion in 2016 at a reported $60 billion valuation. Ant Financial is an Alibaba affiliate that operates Alipay and provides a range of financial services including micro-loans and Alibaba’s digital bank, MyBank. The company says it reaches 450 million users overall, with payment, insurance and wealth-management services reaching 140 million people in rural China and MyBank having issued 20 million loans to SMEs and entrepreneurs. It has expanded beyond China via its investment in Paytm; at the turn of 2016 Paytm had 122 million users and was processing 52 million transactions a month, up 230% year-on-year. Ant Financial was spun out of Alibaba in December 2014 and has leveraged Alibaba’s e-commerce scale—Alibaba reported $5.3 billion in revenue in the referenced quarter. The company is widely tipped to pursue an IPO and a vice president said he hopes to list on both domestic and offshore exchanges. Ant emphasizes financial inclusion for people in remote areas and says it will work with investors like CIC to expand its footprint overseas. Ant Financial Services Group is Alibaba Group's internet finance affiliate and operates Alipay, the firm's flagship online payments platform. The company has been granted permission to run an internet bank and offer wealth-management products. Beijing has positioned Ant to help shake up China's conservative finance sector and better serve smaller businesses and individual borrowers. Reuters reports the unit was valued at about $45 billion after a private placement. Ant sold stakes to external investors including China Development Bank Capital and a holding company affiliated with David Yu; China’s National Social Security Fund acquired about 5 percent. Following the placement, David Yu and other external investors now hold 12.4 percent of the company. Shanghai Securities News had earlier reported Ant was seeking to raise up to $4 billion in a private placement of shares.

Total raised

$18.5B

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series C

Latest activity

Jun 2018