U.S.-based Walmart is making deeper inroads into China's Internet with enhanced investment in one of China's rising e-commerce firms.

Walmart has made a US$50 million strategic investment in New Dada, formerly known as Dada and controlled by JD.com Inc. New Dada was created in April 2016 from a merger between JD.com's online-to-offline unit and Dada Nexus Ltd., a venture-backed Uber-like mobile app that focuses on providing last mile logistics services.

The O2O logistics services provider New Dada currently claims more than 25 million registered users, and provides local on-demand delivery capabilities with 2.5 million crowd-sourced deliverers across more than 300 cities in China.

Officially launched in 2014, Dada operates through Imdada.cn and last completed a US$300 million series D round of financing from DST Global, Sequoia Capital and others in January.

It previously raised three rounds of venture funding from DST Global, Sequoia Capital, Greenwoods Investment Management and other undisclosed investors.

In April, JD.com paid US$200 million in cash and injected JD Daojia assets into Dada in exchange for a 47.4% stake in the newly merged Dada.