Huitongda Network, a rural e-commerce spinout of appliance retailer Jiangsu Five Star, has received $717m in funding from Alibaba.

E-commerce firm Alibaba has made a RMB4.5bn ($717m) investment in Huitongda Network, a spinoff from China-based retail chain Jiangsu Five Star Appliances, The Paper reported on Tuesday.

Founded in 2010, Huitongda provides e-commerce and marketing services to a network of about 80,000 rural brick-and-mortar retailers across 15,000 towns in a total of 18 Chinese provinces.

Local retailers get the ability to sell items to a wider market through an established e-commerce platform, while online merchants can access rural customers more…