Alibaba invests in Taobao

Taobao, one of China's largest consumer e-commerce companies, yesterday announced that its parent company, Alibaba Group, will invest 5 billion yuan over the next five years to expand its e-commerce platform for vendors and customers.

The first portion of the fund will be injected into Taobao at the end of the year.

Taobao will continue to offer its services for free to buyers and individual sellers for at least three years.