Alibaba leads $280 million investment in Tango as interest in mobile messaging apps heats up

March 19, 2014 - 9:02 PM

SAN FRANCISCO - Tango is joining the conga line of mobile messaging services that have turned into hot commodities as more people use them to communicate and share photos, music and other content.

China's Alibaba Group is making the latest big bet on the trend with a $215 million investment in Tango and its 200 million registered users.

Another group of investors that includes Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang is anteing an additional $65 million to raise the total funding round to $280 million.

Alibaba is buying into Tango's future just a month after online social networking leader Facebook Inc. announced plans to acquire mobile messaging service WhatsApp for $19 billion. Another mobile messaging specialist, Viber Media, sold for $900 million last month to Japan's Rakuten Inc.

News from © The Associated Press, 2014

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