ANT Financial Services Group, operator of China’s biggest online payment platform by market share, Alipay, has closed its latest funding round having raised US$10 billion from a clutch of global and local investors, five sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Ant’s first fundraising targeting global money values the firm at US$150 billion, the sources said, compared with about US$60 billion after its previous fundraising in April 2016.

A number of global sovereign wealth funds and private equity firms joined the fundraising as main investors. They include Singapore’s sovereign fund GIC Pte Ltd. and state investor Temasek Holdings (Private) Ltd., as well as U.S. private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC, the sources said.

Malaysian sovereign fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd has also joined as a major investor, one of the sources said.

The funding round also brought in private equity firm Carlyle Group LP and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, which typically invests in early-stage startups, the sources said.

The amount and investor line-up are finalized and the transfer of funds is underway, the sources said.

The funding round includes a separate tranche of around 7 billion yuan (US$1.1 billion) in new shares which has not been finalized, two of the sources said.

The capital-raising comes ahead of a widely expected initial public offering (IPO), though Ant has neither publicly set a timetable nor chosen a likely stock exchange.

A US$150 billion valuation would make Ant’s IPO one of the biggest ever — comparing to the US$104 billion of Facebook Inc. six years ago and Alibaba’s US$168 billion in 2014.

(SD-Agencies)