The financial affiliate of Chinese ecommerce group Alibaba has raised $4.5bn from mostly state-backed investors, in what it said was the largest…

The financial affiliate of Chinese ecommerce group Alibaba has raised $4.5bn from mostly state-backed investors, in what it said was the largest private placement by an internet company globally

Investors in the Series B financing round include a unit of China Investment Corp (CIC), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, and a subsidiary of China Construction Bank, the country’s second-largest lender by assets, according to a statement by Ant Financial on Friday

The latest fundraising values Ant Financial at $60bn, according to China Business News, a respected daily newspaper that is part-owned by Alibaba. The valuation places Ant Financial among the world’s most valuable private technology companies, alongside smartphone maker Xiaomi and US car-hailing app Uber. A previous funding round in June 2015 valued the company at $45bn-$50bn

Ant Financial Services Group includes Alipay, China’s leading online and mobile payments service; MYbank, an online-only lender established last June targeting consumers and small businesses; Sesame Credit, an experimental credit rating service that draws on Alibaba’s trove of user data; and Tianhong Asset Management, the fund company that manages Yu’e Bao, the money-market mutual fund linked to Alipay

In addition to new investors CIC and CCB, the latest fundraising includes additional investment by existing Ant Financial shareholders including the parent company of Postal Savings Bank of China; the private equity arm of China Development Bank; and Primavera Capital Group, the private equity fund run by Fred Hu, former Goldman Sachs chairman for greater China, according to the statement

“The capital raised . . . will allow us to invest in the infrastructure, such as cloud computing and risk control, that will underpin our long-term growth in rural and international markets,” said Eric Jing, Ant Financial’s president

Ant Financial has previously said it intended to conduct an initial public offering on the mainland but has not offered a timeline

The company said its active user base surpassed 450m in 2015, including 140m rural users. China’s central bank recently launched a crackdown on fraud and risk in online finance, a campaign that analysts said was likely to benefit established players with strong compliance and risk management capabilities

But its domestic Alipay business based on collecting transaction fees from merchants and individual users remains the company’s dominant revenue source, analysts say. China is largely forgoing widespread adoption of debit and credit cards, proceeding directly to digital payments: iResearch forecasts that online payments for 2016 will grow 33 per cent year-on-year, following 46 per cent annual growth in 2015

Alipay’s market share in internet payments was 48 per cent last year, ahead of the 20 per cent share for Caifutong, the payment service run by online gaming and social media group Tencent Holdings, according to iResearch