VENTURE CAPITAL POST

The European Commission launched a probe into AliExpress for alleged dissemination of illegal content and pornography under the Digital Services Act, marking the third formal investigation.

Alibaba's Local Services Group (LSG) head, Yu Yongfu, will be leaving his role by March's end amid the company's restructuring, with younger leaders stepping up.

The ownership stakes by the state ranged from below 10% to below 30% as China tightens control over its tech sector.

Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, a longstanding figure in China's technology sector, is diversifying his business ventures into the food industry with the establishment of a new company, "Hangzhou Ma's Kitchen Food."

Alibaba Pictures, Tencent Lead $360M Investment In Bona Film Group

Alibaba is investing $1.48B for its Digital Media and Entertainment. Likewise, it has been entering some investment deals like the one with Youtube.

Alibaba is really on expansion with $1.5B Entertainment Fund.

Alibaba is about to acquire Singaporean start-up Lazada for about $1 billion that was established by the German technology Rocket Internet. Existing shareholders including Tesco, AB Kinnevik and Rocket Internet will sell a portion of their shares to Alibaba.

As a response to China’s new anti-terror law, 25 tech companies in the country have signed a pledge to help the government combat online terror activities. Under the law, tech companies are required to decrypt information for Beijing and provide assistance to keep the internet from terror-related contents.

Ele.me secured a $1.25 billion investment from Alibaba and its finance business unit Ant Financial. China’s O2O business market are now booming as most Chinese consumers are using smartphones to do their daily activities.

Investments in Chinese tech companies had a 50% surge in the first quarter of 2016. Nevertheless, many of the investments were spent in the big startups.

Alipay is working on a plan to launch services in Europe this summer. The service will make it easier Chinese tourists to make transactions with European merchants using the app.

Alibaba is now the new world's largest retail company beating Wal-Mart. Figures might not show it yet but with the company's SEC filing it is measured by Gross Merchandise Volume where Alibaba exceeded Wal-Mart's reported 2015 revenue for its fiscal year ending January 31st.

Online shopping is made easy with the advent of smartphones, creating a new era for online sellers. Online marketing sector has gained from many e-commerce apps over the recent period.

State-run media broadcasts indicated that the Chinese government is turning against the country’s most successful e-commerce company Alibaba. However, the company didn’t seem to take much damage from the reports in terms of sales and shares.