The big deal: Alibaba leads $206 million round in ShopRunner

Tom Paine

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Alibaba has led a $206 million round in Amazon Prime competitor ShopRunner, which has offices in Conshohocken, San Francisco and New York, the Wall Street Journal reports. American Express also participated in the round, which values ShopRunner at $600 million. Reports in August had suggested the size of Alibaba's investment would be in the $70 to $75 million range.

As part of the transaction, the Journal says EBay, which had about a 30% stake in the venture, exited at a profit. This explains my confusion, as I reported last week, about EBay testing its own Amazon Prime competitor without ShopRunner's involvement. It may also reflect increasing competitive pressures globally between Alibaba and EBay.

A part of GSI Commerce founder Michael Rubin's Kynetic LLC holding company, ShopRunner's CEO is Scott Thompson, who briefly served as Yahoo CEO before being pushed out last year due to a resume discrepancy. Prior to that, he served as President of EBay's PayPal unit.

Alibaba also has a PayPal-like payment platform outside the US and there is a chance it could introduce it here. The Chinese internet giant is expected to file for an IPO in the US.

No word on whether EBay also exited its stake in Rue La La, another Kynetic holding.

A majority of ShopRunner employees listed on LinkedIn are based in the Philly area, although several of its senior executives are located in the Bay area.



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