Alibaba is doubling down on Southeast Asia after it announced a deal to pay close to $1 billion to raise its stake in e-commerce firm Lazada from 51 percent to 83 percent.
The Chinese firm made an initial $1 billion investment in April 2016 at a valuation of $1.5 billion — this second deal raises that valuation to $3.15 billion, Lazada disclosed. The deal sees Alibaba buy shares from existing backers, including Rocket Internet — Singaporean sovereign fund Temasek and the Lazada management team are the only investors that kept hold of their stock.
“That [valuation] is quite a significant uptick and overall that reflects the great performance and traction that Lazada has seen. It also reflects that Alibaba continues to be extremely positive about this region, doubling down on Southeast Asia and seeing the potential,” Lazada CEO Max Bittner told TechCrunch in an interview.
Bittner declined to provide specific financial figures for the business. But he said that “explosive growth” since the first investment has seen Lazada’s base of merchants increase to over 100,000 with more than 80 million SKUs available to consumers.
Founded by Rocket Internet in 2012, Lazada currently serves six countries in Southeast Asia. It is primarily focused in online commerce, but it expanded into e-groceries with the acquisition of Singapore-based Redmart last year. It also launched an Amazon Prime-style membership in partnership with Uber and Netflix in a move viewed at rivaling Amazon, which is…