As Alibaba ventures into the social media and social commerce segments of its investment portfolio, a $586m investment into Weibo, China's equivalent to Twitter seems bang on target to its corporate strategy, which is to have greater access to user data and buying trends across Alibaba e-commerce platforms and other future e-marketplaces.
China-based online trading site Alibaba Group has invested $586m to purchase shares of Weibo Corporation, a instant messaging subsidiary of Sina, a Nasdaq-listed online media company.
The shares purchased included preferred and ordinary shares and represented approximately 18% of Weibo on a fully-diluted basis.
Sina has also granted an option to Alibaba to enable Alibaba to increase its stake in Weibo to 30% on a fully-diluted basis at a mutually agreed but undisclosed valuation within an undisclosed period of time,…
