Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

A group of investors, including South Korea-based and China’s, led the round, which also included participation from London-based . (We’ve put in an email to the company to confirm its valuation and will update this story if we hear back.)

Eight-year-old BigBasket, which sells a range of products such as groceries and pet food, operates in 25 Indian cities. It is reportedly going to use the fresh capital toward expansion. The round brings BigBasket’s total raised over time .

BigBasket competes with Amazon and a subsidiary of Walmart, among others.

The funding comes at a time when India’s food delivery space is ramping up. In March, we reported that , an India-based startup that delivers grocery staples, had raised $60 million from , upping its valuation to $425 million, Ìý´¡²Ô»å, , an India-based company that delivers food from restaurants, raised $1 billion in December in a round led by South Africa-based .

Illustration:

Today that , a China-based bike-sharing startup, has raised a new raft of cash. The precise figure is hard to nail down, but TechInAsia that the figure is around 4 billion RMB, or around $582 million as of the time of writing.

Follow Crunchbase News on

In an emailed comment, Hellobike told Crunchbase News that it “secured billions of yuan in [its] latest round of fundraising, led by Primavera Capital and Ant Financial,” but declined to provide an exact figure.

The new funds come at an trying time for Hellobike’s sector. Leading China-based bike-sharing powerhouses and have hit troubles and landed soft exits, respectively. With those two in trouble, and scooter-focused share companies taking the limelight and, seemingly, the financial oxygen in the micromobility space, to see Hellobike raise as much as it has is surprising.

(Ofo has fallen into a cash crunch and an expectations crisis. Companies that have  aren’t supposed to struggle to refund deposits. And yet.)

TechInAsia that Hellobike handles over 20 million “daily rides” with 200 million “registered users” in 300 hundred cities in China. With tens of millions of rides daily, Hellobike’s revenue looks large from the outside. Hellobike’s scale may make the round more reasonable than we might have first guessed.

With Hellobike, as with Ofo and Mobike, we see a leading China-based tech shop taking financial interest in mobility. In this case, , an Alibaba affiliate. , a China-based tech giant, invested in Ofo in the past, making the new Hellobike round all the more interesting, and, if we’re being honest, confusing. Mobike, in contrast, was supported by Tencent and acquired by an affiliated company,Ìý. (Meituan Dianping recently went public.)

Hellobike has now raised total, kicking off with a A. The firm’s early rounds were led by , until , a China-based car company led its Series C. Ant took the wheel with Hellobike’s Series D, leading or co-leading all subsequent rounds.

Between Ofo and Hellobike, the larger Alibaba family has huge bets in the bike space. Why, is the remaining question.

Illustration Credit:

Shares of are in pre-market trading after the Chinese Internet giant reported better-than-expected growth for the quarter ending June 2018.

Follow Crunchbase News on

Alibaba revenue of $12.23 billion, just ahead of street estimates. The firm’s 61 percent revenue growth in aggregate was matched by  61 percent revenue growth in its “core commerce” group and surpassed by 93 percent growth from its cloud computing group. Alibaba recorded $710 million in cloud computing top line in the period.

Tucked into the numbers, however, was a startling note regarding one of its recently-acquired components.

, Alibaba’s self-described “on-demand delivery service,”  is flush with new investment, some from outside the company. Alibaba notes in its earnings report that it “completed the acquisition of Ele.me” in May of this year, calling the service “one of the leading online food delivery platforms in China.”

Alibaba describes the “local services” work that Ele.me executes “core” to its business.

And that’s not idle chat. Alibaba goes on to detail that Ele.me has picked up $3 billion in new funding, including capital from its parent company:

We have established a company to hold Ele.me and Koubei as our combined flagship local services vehicle, which we plan to separately capitalize with investments from Alibaba, Ant Financial and third-party investors. As of the time of this announcement, we have received over US$3 billion in new investment commitments, including from Alibaba and SoftBank. As a result of this reorganization, subject to closing conditions, we will consolidate Koubei, which would result in a material one-off revaluation gain when the transaction closes.

So, Alibaba has created a new company that it will partially own, along with external investors. And, the new company has picked up $3 billion in ²Ô±ð·ÉÌýinvestments, including money from the ever-present .

That’s a lot of cash, and that’s an impressive investor list.

The global local-delivery market is huge. is . is . is in the space. and and and and and and and others are in the space, too.

Of course, Ele.me is pitted mostly against domestic competition like Meituan, but it’s working a crowded global market all the same. And it’s an expensive race, likely replete with heavy burn rates and slim margins. Happily, for Alibaba, it has now moved impending Ele.me losses to a separate company that it won’t have to report in its operating results.

These are wild times replete with unlimited money and zero fear. What a time to be alive.

Top Image Credit: