(Yicai Global) July 6 -- Chinese bike-sharing startup, Ofo Bicycle Co., has raised more than USD700 million through round-E financing, co-led by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. [NYSE:BABA], Hony Capital and CITIC Industry Investment Fund Management (CITIC Industry Fund), with China eCapital Corporation acting as the sole financial advisor, the company said. The announcement came only a few weeks after Ofo's main rival Mobike's USD600 million financing deal.  

Ofo is close to the latest funding round, and the money raised will be used to significantly increase the number of bicycles in the market, said the chief executive Dai Wei at Summer Davos in late June, adding that the company plans to increase the total number of bikes in service to 20 million by the end of the year. Ofo currently operates 6.5 million bikes in more than 120 cities, with the daily order volume hitting 25 million on average, according to its own statistics.

The company previously said that it would scale up operations to cover 200 cities in 20 countries by the end of the year, adding new foreign markets such as Japan, Spain, France, Germany and the Philippines in addition to the existing ones – the US, the UK and Singapore. This means that most of the proceeds from the latest financing round will be spent on overseas markets.

Coincidentally, Mobike's chief executive, Wang Xiaofeng, also said when announcing the company's USD600 million financing that Mobike would use the money raised to push forward its business globalization, and expand its service network to cover 200 cities worldwide by the end of the year.

With USD600 million and USD700 million of cash in hand respectively, the two industry leaders both set their targets at 200 cities. Competition is bound to intensify on China's bike-sharing market and beyond.