Jack Ma-backed OceanBase is seeking new funding to support independent operations and expand its artificial intelligence database business. Bloomberg reported that the Beijing-based company is holding Series A discussions with potential investors.
People familiar with the talks said OceanBase could raise between 2 billion yuan and 3 billion yuan. The range equals about $295 million to $443 million. The discussions are private, and OceanBase has not announced final terms. A completed transaction has also not been confirmed.
OceanBase plans to direct the proposed capital toward products that connect company data with AI models and agents. Its development work covers structured records, documents, videos, and other forms of unstructured data. The company also wants to strengthen tools used for real-time business analysis.
In June, OceanBase introduced an AI Database portfolio built around its LakeBase architecture. The platform combines transaction processing, analytics and multimodal data management in one system. It also supports vector data for AI search and retrieval. OceanBase describes the product as a shared data layer for enterprise AI applications.
Moreover, the company is expanding as businesses seek fewer separate systems for data storage and analysis. Its approach allows customers to manage operational information and AI-related workloads within the same database environment. OceanBase is also developing products for data preparation, search, and services used by AI agents.
OceanBase recorded more than $200 million in annualized revenue in 2026, according to people cited by Bloomberg. The figure increased about 70% from the previous year. The company serves thousands of customers, although most of them operate in China.
Its customer base includes banks, telecommunications groups and other large companies. OceanBase lists ICBC and China Mobile among organizations using its database technology. The company has also started expanding across Southeast Asia, Japan, India and Latin America. Official customer records show deployments in finance and telecommunications.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that OceanBase views Databricks as a business benchmark. Databricks provides software for managing large datasets and supporting AI services. OceanBase competes with Huawei, Tencent and other database providers in the Chinese market.
IDC data placed OceanBase first in China’s on-premises distributed transaction database market during the first half of 2025. It generated $28.1 million in that segment. OceanBase also ranked fourth in the wider market, which included public cloud database services.
OceanBase started as an internal database project in 2010. Ant Group developed the technology for high-volume online services and payment activity. The project later became a commercial business serving external customers. OceanBase documentation says the first deployment supported a Taobao service.
The database has also supported Alipay during China’s Singles’ Day shopping events. OceanBase says its systems have processed 544,000 transactions per second and 61 million queries per second. Those figures reflect its use in large payment environments.
Additionally, OceanBase formed an independent board and created an employee share-based rewards program in 2024. The changes prepared the business for a possible future separation from Ant Group. Alibaba Group, which Jack Ma founded, owns about one-third of Ant Group.
Ant Digital Technologies is also exploring a separate fundraising process, according to Bloomberg. The unit handles enterprise technology services within Ant Group. It established its own board in 2024, although funding terms have not been determined.
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