Yesterday we were hearing reports that global investing behemoth Digital Sky Technologies was setting up another fund, already investing in Groupon and Spotify’s $100 million round and sniffing around the “Amazon of China,” 360buy.com. Today the company has confirmed the reports to Reuters, revealing that the total amount of financing was an impressive 1.5 billion. 360buy.com, in the same space as Taobao, plans to IPO in 2013.
The Yuri Milner-led DST has put in $500 million of the $1.5 billion in funfing, with Tiger Fund, Walmart and others completing the rest of the round. If you’ve read Sarah Lacy’s extensive chronicling of the region, it comes as no surprise that the same investment group that made a successful bet with Facebook and Groupon has now set its sights on the burgeoning opportunities in Chinese e-Commerce.
The e-Commerce industry in China as a whole saw $79 billion (520 billion yuan) in sales last year, and 360buy.com itself made an estimated $1.7 billion in sales in 2010. DST also raised another $500 million in December from six investors including Walmart again.