阿里巴巴战略投资「衣二三」，巨头持续布局“新租赁经济” – 36Kr
What happened: Alibaba announced a new round of strategic investment into Yi23, a Chinese clothing sharing and rental platform which has already absorbed funding from giants including Sequoia Capital, SoftBank (China), IDG, and ZhenFund. The accumulated capital raised is said to have reached hundreds of millions US dollars. Alibaba’s joining the game will also bring the e-commerce giants’ retail and payment units into an emerging clothing rental business.
Why it’s important: The case is an example of Alibaba being an investor and power-behind-the-scenes instead of directly leading a business trend. With strong commerce and mobile payment strength in the country, building partnerships with emerging new economic models will be more efficient as it brings benefits with just light investment and resource sharing burden.