Alibaba to invest $200 million in SnapChat

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba has planned to invest about $200 million in SnapChat, a photo messaging application that allows users to share self-destructing photos. The application is currently banned in China. According to an individual at Alibaba familiar with the deal, Imran Khan was the key to the deal. Imran Khan was hired by Snapchat as Chief Strategy Officer in December 2014.

According to a report, the web shop company was in talks with Snapchat in 2014, but the rumored investment didn’t take place ahead of the company’s IPO. Another person familiar with the matter said that the latest round will give Snapchat a valuation of about $15 billion. Earlier, the company had raised about $650 million in half dozen rounds of funding. The company had previously turned down an acquisition offer of about $3 billion from Facebook. Yahoo and Internet company Tencent are some of the investors of the company.

The photo messaging application developed by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown allows users to share pictures and text messages that disappear after a few seconds. As per the report, the app has more than 100 million monthly active users, but the company has not generated significant revenue yet. Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy are among the world’s youngest billionaires.

Alibaba, which has been investing heavily overseas, has now decided to invest in Snapchat. Alibaba always target companies that could help it to expand its e-commerce business. Earlier, the company had invested about $215 million in chat app Tango and $250 million round in ridesharing app Lyft.

Snapchat and Alibaba have not commented on the matter, but the latest move by Alibaba shows that the company has planned to enter the market outside the mainland. In 2014, the company had held its annual Single’s Day sale simultaneously in China for the first time.