Ant Financial, the financial services arm of Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba, has raised a whopping $4.5 billion in a series B funding round as it looks to expand operations globally.
Ant Financial was created in October 2014, when Alibaba folded six different businesses into a single business unit as part of a concerted push into the financial services industry.
The six subsidiary companies comprise Alipay and Alipay Wallet, Yu'e Bao, a money market fund with 570 billion yuan ($93 billion) under management; Zhao Cai Bao, a third-party financial services platform; micro-loan provider Ant Micro; and MYBank, a private bank.
The business has already made its mark overseas, recently raising its stake in Indian mobile commerce player Paytm to 40%.
The new funding round - which included participation from sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp (CIC), CCB Trust, China Life, China Post Group, China Development Bank Capital and Primavera Capital Group - will give the business formidable fire power as it seeks to extend its footprint to more foreign markets and ahead of a planned IPO.
The group said it will work in tandem with CIC to grow in new territories, with a promise “to provide equal access to financial services globally".
Ant Financial president Eric Jing, says: “The capital raised in Series B will allow us to invest in the infrastructure, such as cloud computing and risk control, that will underpin our long-term growth in rural and international markets.”