Ofo, the Chinese bicycle-sharing startup that just lately claimed unicorn standing, introduced this weekend that it has included Ant Monetary as an investor. In a assertion posted to its Weibo account, Ofo mentioned that it will operate with Ant Monetary, an Alibaba device, on Internet and credit history card payments and its intercontinental expansion system.
The amount of Ofo’s new funding from Ant Monetary was not disclosed. Just two months in the past, Ofo closed a $450 million Collection D that it claims raised its valuation to extra than a billion bucks. That round was led by DST World wide, Matrix China, CITIC, and Didi Chuxing, the premier car or truck-hailing application in China.
Ant Financial—the maker of Alipay, China’s premier on the net payment platform—was by now a single of Ofo’s strategic partners. In March, Ofo started out making use of Ant Financial’s credit history-ranking procedure, termed Sesame Credit score, to make it possible for end users with qualifying scores to lease bikes with no obtaining to make a deposit.
Obtaining Ant Monetary as an ally strengthens Ofo’s situation in opposition to its main rival Mobike. Both of those organizations are keen to grow further than China and have been hectic lining up strategic partners and buyers. Mobike’s backers include Tencent, a single of Alibaba’s major rivals, and tech producing large Foxconn. Tencent can make WeChat Spend, which lags guiding Alipay in sector share but enjoys the gain of currently being built-in into WeChat, the messaging application that is nearly ubiquitous amid Chinese smartphone end users.
In its assertion, Ofo says it wants to be the world’s premier bicycle rental system and that it designs to operate with Ant Monetary to grow into new countries. TechCrunch has contacted both equally organizations for extra specifics.
Featured Graphic: Ofo
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