Meituan CEO who beat Jack Ma gets US$10bil for next fight

The US$10bil (RM41.17bil) raised will more than double Meituan’s cash, giving it the biggest war chest after Alibaba’s, to invest in new technologies like autonomous delivery and build infrastructure for online groceries. — Reuters

The competition between Wang Xing’s Meituan and fellow tech billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is turning into one of the great rivalries in Chinese business.

While Alibaba is the dominant force in e-commerce with a global reputation, Wang, a generation younger, has built Meituan into a fearsome rival, the world’s largest delivery empire with ambitions to encroach on Alibaba’s home turf. There’s also years of bad blood between the two companies after an early alliance broke down.