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Liba.com fueled to accelerate its expansion

By Hao Zhou (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-07-09 16:33

Liba.com, China's largest e-commerce website for household consumption, announced it has acquired a second venture capital fund of $15 million from the Swedish investment company Investor AB and the US-based Walton International Investment Group.

Established in Shanghai in 2003, liba.com was formerly a group-purchase website for family decorations named 51tuangou.com. Since it has expanded its online businesses to include wedding ceremonies, driving lessons and social networking, liba.com's transaction volume doubled annually the past five years in a row, reaching 64 million yuan ($9.3 million) last year.

Unlike China's largest online consumer website Taobao, liba.com focuses on those businesses with single transaction volume that can reach tens of thousands of yuan, such as household decorations and wedding ceremonies. Transactions on Taobao could be hundreds of yuan.

Liba.com now has 1.8 million registered members and more than 10 million daily hits.

"We have established a complete purchase process for household consumers, from purchasing guide to transaction and after-sale services," said Zhang Guohua, chief executive officer of liba.com.

"In addition to upgrading our business model, we are seeking to acquire more and more local social networks and e-business companies to enlarge our influence and capacity," Zhang said. "We are qualified to go public at present, but I am expecting more private placements to fuel our expansion."

In total, 55 million Chinese domestic Internet users shopped online last year, spending 59.4 billion yuan, according to the Beijing-based China Internet Research Center. IT market researcher iResearch predicted that China's online economy would top 400 billion yuan during the next three years.

This has lured more and more venture capitals. Softbank Corporation on May 1 agreed to lead an investment totaling $430 million for 35 percent of the stakes of Oak Pacific Interactive, the owner of China's largest social networking website Xiaonei.com.