Alibaba buys China's food delivery startup Ele.me for $9.5 billion

Beijing, April 2: E-commerce giant Alibaba on Monday announced it will acquire full ownership of China's leading online food delivery startup Ele.me for $9.5 billion.

The e-commerce giant and its affiliate Ant Financial currently own about 43 percent of the outstanding voting shares of Ele.me, Alibaba said in a statement.

"Ele.me can leverage Alibaba's infrastructure in commerce and find new synergies with Alibaba's diverse businesses to add further momentum to the New Retail initiative," Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang said.

With a large delivery force in cities across China, Ele.me's fast local delivery services will build on its core expertise in food delivery to provide consumers with a wider range of products and services on-demand.