BizArk, a Chinese e-commerce company specialized in international trading solutions, has now made its debut and announced that it has secured ‘tens of millions of dollars’ in financing from IDG Ventures (up to $40 million according to several reports).
The press release announcing the investment is one of the strangest I’ve ever read.
In it, BizArk says that outsiders speculate about the possibility that IDG Ventures is financially backing BizArk to make up for its failure to invest in rival Alibaba. The company cites a two-year old quote from one of the firm’s senior VPs to back up those speculations.
Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems peculiar for a company that has just raised tens of millions of dollars from an investor to point out its partner’s apparent failure to correctly assess an investment opportunity in a competitor years earlier.
The company also remains vague on its international partnership agreements with the likes of Google and PayPal, for no apparent reason.
From the press release:
Besides IDG, BizArk also attracts the attentions of big companies, such as Google, TrustWave, Paypal and LinkShare.
It is reported that, BizArk and Google have attained a cooperation to build up a tailored platform for trading companies which have a narrow product range but intend to develop overseas markets according to its product characteristics and market situation.
Reported by whom? And what does this cooperation with Google entail, specifically?
At the bottom of the press release, finally, the company also casually mentions that its CEO is Jason Gu, former Google general manager of the Eastern China Region, and that it currently employs some 400 people.
Bizarre.