Sources: DST Global Led Mobile Shopping App Wish’s $500M Round

DST Global, Yuri Milner’s late stage VC fund, took the lead on the purported $500 million financing round invested in Wish, the mobile shopping app, according to people familiar with the matter.

Forbes reported earlier that it had obtained SEC documents, which revealed Wish’s plans to raise $500 million by February. Forbes sources (as well as our own) pegged the valuation at $3 billion.

This deal has gone through and DST Global is leading the round, sources confirmed to TechCrunch.

Wish is a mobile commerce application that has grown wildly over the past five years. The company has raised more than $75 million, not including this latest round. Previous investors include Formation 8, Founders Fund, GGV Capital, Legend Capital, Jerry Yang, Jared Leto, among others.

The company, founded by former Google, Yahoo and Facebook employees Peter Szulczewski and Danny Zhang, focuses predominantly on the “value shopper,” offering lower-cost items through an engaging mobile shopping experience.

Users choose from thousands of low-cost items from hundreds of merchants, most of which are made in China. Imagine Alibaba on mobile, but way prettier. In fact, many of the merchants on Wish are also Alibaba merchants targeting the western consumer. Wish tailors the shopping experience for each user by taking into account data from their likes and interests.

DST Global was founded by Yuri Milner more than a decade ago and has raised a total of $688 million for the fund in that time, investing in later-stage private companies that show rapid growth. With seven big exits under the belt, DST Global’s investment in the fast-growing Wish ecommerce platform makes sense.

In June of last year, when Wish announced a $50 million round, Wish reported 31 million active users, and more than 10,000 merchants on the platform.

We reached out to both Wish and DST Global before publishing this story. We’ll update if we hear back from either.