Alibaba has made a strategic minority investment to PlaceIQ, which is a follow-on addition to $25 million PlaceIQ’s 2016 Series D funding round.

The amount of investment was not disclosed. What is known is that it will be used to help the company expand and improve its operations globally, starting with the Chinese market, AdExchanger reported.

Like Us on Facebook

The latest investment was separate from the software deal made in January. Both companies have discussed potential product improvements, which are part of a multiyear road map, and others will be done right away. 

“They do not do nonstrategic investments, and they find that deals are more successful when they come in and invest in the company” said PlaceIQ CEO Duncan McCall.

PlaceIQ is an NYC-based consumer behaviour analytics platform that ties physical and digital activities across time, space and mobile devices.

Alibaba has been using PlaceIQ's software, where all its data remain behind a firewall. PlaceIQ technology helps Alibaba to ingest its data, clean it and make it available for action.

The company will use the funding to continue developing its location-based audience platform as well, according to PR Newswire. PlaceIQ is planning to work with Alibaba Group on location-based online-to-offline (O2O) services, including marketing, consumer insights and data-driven decision-making. 

Alibaba and PlaceIQ are in the middle of integrating technology on the former’s products and services. The PlaceIQ core technology also works nearly identically in the United States and internationally, attributing to the “universal construct” built of smartphones.

Alibaba’s latest investment proves PlaceIQ’s ability to deliver the best technology to power data-driven decision-making.

TagsAlibaba, PlaceIQ, china, Alibaba Group, location-based audience platform, Chinese e-commerce giant