New investment round values Alibaba at $32b

DST Global Solutions and Silver Lake are among firms that agreed to invest US$1.6 billion in China’s Alibaba Group, valuing the country’s e-commerce giant at US$32 billion, state media reported. The statement said that others participating in the deal include Chinese private equity firm Yunfeng Capitaland and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings. “This liquidity program will allow our people to focus on growing our business and continuing to create value,” said Jack Ma, Alibaba chairman and chief executive officer, in the statement. Alibaba is attracting the most prominent technology investors from Silicon Valley in an effort to compete with Baidu, which has 75% of China’s search-engine traffic. Alibaba is expanding to build a search engine and a mobile operating system.