Alibaba Creates 1 Billion RMB “Cloud Fund” For Cloud Apps, Start-Ups

Aliyun OS chief architect Wang Jian, launching the Cloud Fund today. (Image source: Sina Tech)

The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is today starting a 1 billion RMB (US$156.9 million) “cloud fund” that will invest in cloud-oriented web companies and start-ups. There’s also a separate 1 million RMB in prizes for the software developers who create the best web apps for the company’s Aliyun mobile OS.

The announcement was made this morning by both Aliyun division president Wang Jian (pictured above) and the Cloud Fund chairman Yu Feng, speaking at the China Mobile Internet Summit. The fund has been set up in conjunction with VCs such as Cerberus Capital, East Ventures, and some others.

The fund is not confined to start-ups or web companies who use the Aliyun – aka AliCloud – service. An Alibaba Group spokeswoman confirmed to us:

The K-Touch W700 running the Aliyun OS, which is oriented to run HTML5-based web/cloud apps.

[It] will focus on enterprises and developers who use AliCloud’s platform and those who develop apps for the Aliyun OS, but we will not rule out those companies who are innovators in the cloud-computing space.

The Aliyun OS launched in July of this year, and so far has appeared on only the K-Touch W700 phone. There are rumors in the Chinese press that a new model – from the same hardware maker – will arrive in November, along with v2.0 of the cloud-oriented OS itself. When we saw Wang Jian speaking at Alibaba HQ a few weeks agp, he confirmed that an Aliyun tablet will launch “within two months.”

The web app competition – where the two winners will get a whole 100,000 RMB each – starts today and runs to December 31st. As well as all that cash going to over 200 app developers, there’s always the chance for the winning start-ups – and any others that show promise with their cloud apps – getting VC backing from the Cloud Fund as well. The official competition page is here.

[Source: Sina Tech news – article in Chinese]