Is a Chinese private equity firm hoping to take on e-commerce giant Alibaba via a new investment?

China-based private equity firm Hillhouse Capital is reportedly making a USD250 million minority investment in Magento Commerce, a cloud e-commerce provider. Magento was previously owned by eBay, but became an independent entity in 2015.

The Hillhouse investment will be used to fuel the American company's worldwide growth, with an emphasis on Asia. Magento's cloud-based open platform is supported by a global ecosystem of solution integrators and technology partners.

For Asia, this means a small Chinese business could ostensibly use Magento's solution rather than setup a virtual storefront on Taobao.com or Alibaba.com.

"Since becoming an independent company only one year ago, Magento is already the largest global commerce platform in the world," said Mark Lavelle, CEO of Magento Commerce. "Our powerful, cloud-based open platform is supported by a vast global ecosystem of solution integrators and technology partners to enable over 250,000 clients who collectively generate more than US$50 billion in annual merchandise volume. But we are only just getting started."