Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba continues its buy-in mode, and the latest firm that it has snapped up is photo messaging app Snapchat.

The firm, founded by former school teacher Jack Ma in his garage, reportedly invested US$200 million in the tech company. The four-year-old privately held startup is valued at US$15 billion, estimates Bloomberg, five times the US$3 billion offer by Facebook in late 2013, reports Reuters.

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Based in Los Angeles, California, Snapchat has over 10 million users. Part of the attraction of the app to its majority young users is that they could send messages that disappear in seconds.

However, that feature is no guarantee that messages or images they post will not be saved by other users in the short span of time it displayed on their devices.

Recently, an American youth who posted a selfie with the image of his classmate whom he shot and killed as background was charged with homicide based on a saved copy of the selfie made by another classmate who received the photo.

In January, Snapchat started to carry videos and articles from mainstream media companies such as CNN and ESPN, competing with Facebook and Twitter.

Besides investing in Snapchat, Alibaba has also invested recently into other U.S. tech startups such as Lyft, a rides-on demand service, and Tango, also a messaging app.

Forbes reports that the person who pushed for Alibaba to invest in Snapchat is Imram Khan, hired by the e-commerce giant in December as chief strategy officer. He used to head the Asia investment banking unit of Credit Suisse and played a key role in Alibaba's record-breaking initial public offering in the U.S. that raised US$25 billion fresh capital in September 2014 in New York.

Snapchat's co-founders are 24-year-old Evan Spiegel and 25-year-old Bobby Murphy who are among the youngest billionaires in the world with a net worth each of US$1.5 billion.

Despite its more than 100 million monthly active users, Snapchat has yet to earn significant revenue, notes Forbes.

Tagssnapchat, messaging app, e-commerce