After a series of buying up and investment in its home market, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, a Chinese e-commerce conglomerate, made its move in the United States by sinking $215 million in the California-based chat application Tango.

Together with some of Tango's prior investors, Alibaba has led a $280 million investment round in the free mobile messaging service, according to a blog written by the startup's chief executive officer Uri Raz and chief technology officer Eric Setton on Thursday.

The two senior executives, who are also founders of the 4-year-old Tango, said they are very excited to continue to build upon their foundation of free communications, while extending into new growth areas in social networking and content.