Alibaba's Ant Financial invests in Chinese bike-sharing startup unicorn Ofo
Summary
Ofo, the Chinese bike-sharing startup that recently claimed unicorn status, announced this weekend that it has added Ant Financial as an investor. Just two months ago, Ofo closed a $450 million Series D that it claims raised its valuation to more than a billion dollars. In March, Ofo started using Ant Financials credit-rating system, called Sesame Credit, to allow users with qualifying scores to rent bikes without having to make a deposit.Having Ant Financial as an ally strengthens Ofos position against its chief rival Mobike. Mobikes backers include Tencent, one of Alibabas biggest competitors, and tech manufacturing giant Foxconn. Tencent makes WeChat Pay, which lags behind Alipay in market share but enjoys the advantage of being integrated into WeChat, the messaging app that is almost ubiquitous among Chinese smartphone users.In its statement, Ofo says it wants to be the worlds largest bike rental platform and that it plans to work with Ant Financial to expand into new countries.