Snapchat Raising $200 Million From Alibaba At $15 Billion Valuation: Report

Snapchat’s co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel, who once rejected a $3 billion takeover from Facebook Inc., is now raising $200 million from Chinese online retailer Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. at a valuation of $15 billion, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

Snapchat, whose mobile phone app allows people to share photos, videos, drawings and text that disappear shortly after being sent or received, is separately looking to raise another $500 million, seeking a valuation of between $16 billion and $19 billion, according to the report.

Global businesses are eager to invest in all things mobile to find ways to influence consumers as they turn increasingly to their smartphones for more and more activities - from grocery shopping to impulsive window shopping to booking cabs.

Many of these technologies are emerging, as is typical, from startup companies across the world - from InMobi, a mobile-only advertisement technology company in Bangalore, India’s rising startup capital, to Snapchat in California.

Saudi Arabian multi-billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding investment firm may also invest in four year-old Snapchat, TechCrunch reported on Thursday.