Big Deal: Alibaba plunges $1.25bn into Ele.me

E-commerce firm Alibaba’s $1.25bn investment in China-based online food delivery platform Ele.me, made in the same week as a billion-dollar investment in Singapore-based e-commerce company Lazada, indicates that it remains one of corporate venturing’s big spenders.

Ele.me operates an online platform used to order food for delivery from local restaurants and takeaways. Alibaba invested $900m while its financial services affiliate Ant Financial supplied $350m, the two taking an aggregate stake previously reported to be 27.7% in size.

The deal increased Ele.me’s overall funding to approximately $2.35bn, and follows an August 2015 series F round in which the company brought in $630m from internet company Tencent, retail group Hualian and e-commerce company JD.com, as well as a raft of institutional investors, at a valuation north or $3bn.

Other existing investors in Ele.me include ride hailing platform Didi Kuaidi and local listings service Dinaping, which now operates as China Plus Internet Group following its merger with group buying service Meituan late last year. Notably, Alibaba is an investor in Didi Kuaidi and China Internet Plus, though reports in January this year stated it had agreed to sell its 7% stake in the latter for $900m.

Alibaba’s investment in Ele.me was made as part of a strategic tie-up that will involve the food ordering service integrating with Taobao, an online marketplace subsidiary of Alibaba, and Alipay, the online payment platform that forms part of Ant’s offering. Ant will also be able to offer financial service products, cloud computing and location services to Ele.me’s restaurant network, while Ele.me will provide operational support to Koubei, the online food ordering subsidiary that Alibaba invested $1bn in, in June 2015.

The deal was revealed the day after Alibaba announced it had paid $1bn for a 67% stake in Lazada, half of which consisted of newly issued equity and half of which was provided as a secondary investment. Alibaba has also taken part in a $568m round for chauffeured lift ordering service UCar, with UCar confirming the funding last week.

The first sign that Alibaba was gearing up for a spending spree was the disclosure last month that it had secured a five-year, $3bn syndicated loan. Although the regulatory filing in question stated the cash was for general corporate purposes, the company’s past activity suggested much of it would go to strategic investments and that has indeed been the case.

Alibaba first began investing heavily in 2013 as it began gearing up for an initial public offering in autumn the following year that remains the largest in history. Nine-figure investments in microblogging platform Sina Weibo and sports merchandise supplier Fanatics were followed by a string of high profile acquisitions and corporate venturing deals as the company looked to rapidly expand its footprint online.

Those deals included the $1.5bn acquisition of mapping technology provider AutoNavi and the purchase of the 34% stake in internet browser provider UCWeb it did not yet hold, as well as hefty investments in several companies including Meituan, brick-and-mortar retailer InTime Retail, financial software provider Hundsun Technologies and Haier, an appliance manufacturer with a large-sized logistics operation.

At the time, some onlookers estimated the strategy was being implemented in order to drive up the size of Alibaba’s forthcoming IPO, but the deals have not stopped post-flotation. The activity is in reality part of an online land grab in which the firm is competing with rivals such as Tencent and Baidu, with each looking to create an online ecosystem based around their respective offerings.

Alibaba’s strategic investments broadly fall into three groups: e-commerce, media and online services. E-commerce deals have ranged from department store owner InTime to flash sales company Mei.com and logistics service YTO Express. Lazada, like India-based Snapdeal, is a foreign e-commerce counterpart, and stake purchases by Alibaba indicate a willingness to eventually expand abroad, as Amazon is doing, and it will be interesting to see if the Lazada is the first of many involving foreign entities.

The second group consists of both traditional media companies like South China Morning Post, Singapore Post and Shanghai Media, and new technology or online offerings like video streaming platform Youku, instant messaging companies Sina Weibo and Snapchat, and augmented reality developer Magic Leap. For an e-commerce company, access to media and its availability for advertising makes strategic sense.

The third group, where Ele.me and UCar fall, tends to include companies that provide online-to-offline services like food, transport, mapping (AutoNavi) or domestic services (58 Daojia, another Alibaba portfolio company). These can be connected to Alibaba’s e-commerce services, broadening them at the same time as Ant Financial can extend its online payment empire into new realms.

Much like Baidu, Alibaba is developing its own large-sized offerings, such as Ant Financial and Koubei, but investments in businesses that are already frontrunners in their respective sectors gives it a quick in when it comes to various sectors.

The question is whether it continues to focus on China, which makes up something like 20% of the world’s population, or whether the Lazada investment turns out to be the first big shot in an international corporate venturing spree that will make its investments in Snapchat, Magic Leap and ride hailing platform Lyft look like small fry in comparison. Chinese businesses are already investing big money in the US film industry, and the reach of US media could make it a natural place for Alibaba to invest.