When Alibaba launched its B2B platform in China in 1999, conventional wisdom said you "couldn't do business with small business in China." Jack Ma's vision for Alibaba was to solve the problems sitting between those small businesses and potential customers, and to do it on a global basis. Today, Alibaba Group is one of China's most valuable companies, encompassing several of China's leading Internet properties, including :

• Alibaba.com, the global leader in B2B e-commerce; Alibaba.com's IPO in 2007 was the second largest Internet IPO of all time (after Google), raising $1.7 billion USD and giving the company a $25 billion USD market capitalization.
• Taobao, the largest Internet retail web site in China with more than 120 million registered users and more than $70 million USD in daily transaction volume
• Alipay, the leading third-party payment platform in China with more than 200 million registered users processing more than 4 million payments every day
• Alisoft, the leading SaaS provider in China with more than 17 million subscribers as of mid-2009
• Yahoo! Koubei, China's leading classified listing web site with more than 30 million registered users as of mid-2009

GGV's Thomas Ng first invested in Alibaba in 1999 and led GGV's incremental investment in the company in 2004, joining the Board. "We value the skills and insight brought by GGV's global team who helped us understand prevailing Internet models and capital market developments," says Alibaba CEO Jack Ma. "We especially appreciate GGV's management-friendly approach, and their support throughout the negotiations in our $4.25 billion transaction with Yahoo!."

"Our bet was on a great team in a massive market," says GGV's Thomas Ng. "The team made many critical decisions along the way that have turned out to be incredibly visionary. For example, launching Taobao.com in 2003 when we were still a relatively small company facing a ton of competition. Today, Taobao is a market leader and an incredibly valuable property."