Ant Financial, the fintech company that manages popular Chinese mobile payment service Alipay, is looking to raise $9 billion in a new private funding round, something that could turn the company into the world’s largest unicorn.
The company is raising its target to $9 billion from an initial target of $5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported today.
That could raise the company’s valuation to almost $150 billion, according to the WSJ, which would put it above above U.S.-based financial services companies like Goldman Sachs or PayPal.
In 2011, Ant, then called Alipay, was “carved out” of parent company Alibaba. The two companies’ relationships has been close ever since. The company was renamed Ant in 2014.
Alibaba said in February that it would acquire about a one-third stake in Ant and end a profit-sharing agreement with the affiliate. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of this year and benefit Alibaba and its shareholders when Ant goes public.
The company is raising the funds before a much-anticipated initial public offering, the WSJ reported, and comes after it raised $4.5 billion in 2016, giving Ant its current $60 billion valuation.
Read more at the WSJ and Business Standard.