蚂蚁金服大举融资，估值已超高盛

几个月前，有报道称蚂蚁金服打算通过私募融资90亿美元。现在这笔钱不仅已经到位，而且本次C轮融资的总额达到了惊人的140亿美元。

本轮融资让蚂蚁金服的价值达到1500亿美元，从而成为世界上价值最高的私营科技公司； Uber位居第二，价值约为700亿美元。同时，作为阿里巴巴的支付业务附属，蚂蚁金服的价值甚至超过了老牌金融公司美国运通（American Express，市值870亿美元）、高盛集团（Goldman Sachs，880亿美元）和摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley，920亿美元）。

管理支付宝平台的蚂蚁金服已经有14年历史，以往是阿里巴巴的一部分。现在蚂蚁金服自己有可能要首发上市了。本次C轮融资分两部分——其中之一约30亿美元，以人民币计价，来自现有投资者；其余用美元计价，引进的新投资者包括华平投资集团（Warburg Pincus）、银湖资本（Silver Lake）、淡马锡（Temasek）以及加拿大养老金计划投资委员会（Canada Pension Plan Investment Board）。

这笔资金将用于全球扩张和进一步投资于蚂蚁金服的技术，比如区块链、物联网和人工智能等。支付宝不光提供便利的线上和线下支付，它的业务已经扩张到了贷款等其他金融服务领域。在中国国内，支付宝最大的对手是腾讯的微信。

蚂蚁金服首席执行官兼执行董事长井贤栋表示：“我们致力于和国内外所有伙伴建立一个开放的生态系统。我们将继续投资于技术和创新，以便满足大家尚未解决的需求，并确保大家受益于数字经济的发展。”

蚂蚁金服表示，在截至今年3月的财年中，该公司技术的用户规模约为8.7亿人。这个数字基本上源于支付宝的用户数量，以及其他国家和地区基于蚂蚁金服平台的支付服务用户，主要是南亚和东南亚。

《金融时报》报道，蚂蚁金服今年的净利润预计为23.3亿美元。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

A couple months ago, it was reported that China’s Ant Financial was looking to raise $9 billion in a private funding round. Well, the money’s in now, and the total for this Series C round is a whopping $14 billion.

The round gives the Jack Ma-controlled company a valuation of $150 billion, which doesn’t just make it the most valuable privately-held tech firm in the world—the second-most-valuable, Uber, is worth around $70 billion—it even makes the Alibaba payment affiliate more valuable than financial veterans American Express (which has a market cap of $87 billion), Goldman Sachs ($88 billion), and Morgan Stanley ($92 billion.)

The 14-year-old Ant administers the Alipay platform and used to be part of Jack Ma’s Alibaba—now it’s likely to have its own IPO. It raised the Series C cash in two tranches: around $3 billion denominated in renminbi, taking in existing investors, and the rest denominated in U.S. dollars, with new investors including the likes of Warburg Pincus, Silver Lake, Temasek and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

The money will be used for international expansion, and for further investment in Ant’s technology—think blockchain, Internet of things, artificial intelligence and so on. Alipay doesn’t just offer easy payments online and in person; it has also branched out into other financial services such as loans. It’s biggest rival back home is Tencent’s WeChat.

“We are dedicated to building an open ecosystem with all our partners in China and beyond,” said CEO and executive chairman Eric Jing. “We will continue to invest in technology and innovation in order to serve unmet financial needs of people everywhere and to enable them to benefit from the development of the digital economy.”

Ant Financial’s technology was used by around 870 million people in the year up to the end of March, the company said. That figure is largely derived from those who use Alipay, with the rest coming from payment services in other countries that also rely on Ant Financial’s platform, mostly across South and East Asia.

According to the Financial Times, Ant is expected to make a net profit of $2.33 billion this year.