Social commerce app Red raises $300 million

Chinese social commerce app Xiaohongshu, or "Little Red Book", said on Friday it had secured $300 million from a cohort of investors led by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, as word-of-mouth and cross-border shopping continue to influence China's retail landscape.

The Series D financing will value the Shanghai-based startup, which allows its 100 million users to share and review merchandise they bought (often overseas), at more than $3 billion, the company said in an internal letter emailed to China Daily.

Drawing in other venture capital luminaries including GSR Ventures, Tencent Investment and GGV Capital, among others, the company plans to use the funds raised in this round to support talent acquisition, machine learning infrastructure and user growth, the letter said.