Ant Financial, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba that operates Alipay, has raised $4.5bn in a Series B funding round from a clutch of investors.
The latest financing was led by some of China’s biggest state-controlled banks, including arms of the China Construction Bank and China Life Insurance.
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The private financing round, which is considered the biggest ever for a private Internet company, gives the company a roughly $60bn valuation.
Ant Financial president Eric Jing said: "The capital raised in Series B will allow us to invest in the infrastructure, such as cloud computing and risk control, that will underpin our long-term growth in rural and international markets."
In addition, the company has also unveiled IPO plans, though it did not provide a precise timeline.
Ant Financial controls online money-market fund Yu’e Bao and online lender MYBank. The company split from its parent Alibaba Group in 2014.
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