Alibaba has made a strategic investment in Babytree, which claims to be China’s largest and most popular parenting portal, Chinese biztech media and also KrASIA parent 36Kr reported on Monday.
Babytree was valued at over RMB 14 billion (approx. US$2.2 billion) after the round.
Alibaba and Babytree are going to collaborate in areas including e-commerce, C2M, advertising, and marketing, paid content, new retail, online and offline parenting businesses.
“With the help of Alibaba, Babytree is going to make breakthroughs in many business verticals and enhance its capabilities in a bid to offer more professional, safe, convenient and diversified services to every Chinese family,” said Babytree founder and CEO WANG Huainan in an announcement by the company.
Alibaba and Babytree are going to establish a global ecosystem of parenting services to serve more young families, according to Alibaba in the abovementioned announcement
As an exclusive strategic partner, Alibaba will support Babytree with solutions regarding operations, technology, logistics, talents, etc.
In terms of marketing, Babytree will leverage on Alibaba’s marketing ecosystem to revolutionize its marketing strategy.
Founded in 2007, Babytree was initially a combination of an online parent community, parenting tool and e-commerce website. The startup then added C2M and healthcare business units to enrich its offerings. Its Babytree app is China’s most popular parenting app by monthly unique devices according to market research firm iResearch.
The startup counts Fosun Group, TAL, Jumei.com, Matrix Partners China among others as existing investors.
Editor: Jason Zheng