Alibaba, partners invest $400m in Vietnam’s Masan Group to expand online groceries business

Alibaba Group and private equity firm Baring Private Equity Asia today announced their participation in a US$400 million investment in Vietnam’s retail giant Masan Group, giving a boost to Alibaba’s ecommerce platform Lazada to compete in the online groceries business.

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According to a statement, the investment amounts to a 5.5% stake in The CrownX – the holding entity under Masan Group that owns retail platform VinCommerce, which operates popular supermarket chain Vinmart in the country. Masan Group bought VinCommerce from Vingroup back in 2019.

With this latest funding, VinCommerce will form an agreement with Lazada that will allow the Vietnamese retailer to sell its grocery items on Lazada Vietnam. This would enable Lazada to compete with other online competitors such as Tiki, Now, and GrabMart.

See also: Online grocery wars: Grab challenges Lazada for dominance

According to Bloomberg, this move is similar to Lazada’s acquisition of online grocery shopping platform RedMart in Singapore in 2016, which widened Lazada’s local offerings.

Masan Group is also in talks with other investors to close another deal for The CrownX, which is expected to be worth between US$300 million to 400 million in 2021, the statement says.