Jack Ma-backed OceanBase is seeking to raise money to help it operate more independently and bankroll its expansion into artificial intelligence database services, according to people familiar with the matter.
Beijing OceanBase Technology is in discussions with investors to raise about 2 billion to 3 billion yuan (S$382 million to S$572 million) in series A funding, the people said, requesting not to be named because the matter is private.
Originally built out of the need to support Ant Group’s internal database management in 2010, OceanBase has underpinned Ant’s ability to handle half a million transactions per second during sales events like Singles’ Day in China.
Beijing-based OceanBase is now bolstering its AI analytics capabilities. Beyond integrating structured data, the company is beefing up its ability to handle semi-structured or unstructured data like videos.
Database managers are becoming a critical layer of infrastructure that connects enterprise data with AI models and agents.
The firm had more than US$200 million (S$258 million) in annualised revenue in 2026, up 70 per cent from in 2025, the people said.
Its thousands of clients are predominantly Chinese, including Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and China Mobile, according to its website. OceanBase has also started expanding to South-east Asia, Japan, India and Latin America.
OceanBase is looking at companies like San Francisco-based Databricks as a benchmark, the people said.
Databricks said in February it was on track to generate US$5.4 billion in annual revenue, including US$1.4 billion from its AI products.
The company is seeking capital from investors led by Coatue Management at an US$188 billion valuation, people familiar said in July. The US firm offers software to help make sense of large quantities of data and run AI-powered services with it.
OceanBase, which competes against companies including Huawei Technologies and Tencent Holdings, had the largest market share in China for distributed databases in 2025, according to a report from IDC.
Globally, tech firms including International Business Machines, Snowflake and Amazon Web Services have been building out database management systems.
OceanBase set up its independent board and its own employee share-based rewards program in 2024 to pave way for an eventual spinoff from Ant. Alibaba Group Holding, founded by billionaire Ma, owns about a third of Ant Group.
Ant Digital Technologies, the enterprise solutions arm of Ant, is also exploring a separate fundraising, though details have yet to be determined, one of the people added. It also set up a board in 2024.
Ant Group, OceanBase and Ant Digital did not respond to requests for comment. BLOOMBERG
