SHANGHAI: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has agreed to invest $1.25 billion in Chinese online food delivery

service Ele.me, leading business weekly Caixin reported on Friday. The report, citing unidentified sources, said Alibaba will obtain a 27.7 per cent stake in Ele.me, becoming its biggest shareholder. Alibaba and Ele.me both declined to comment. Ele.me, which roughly translates as ‘Hungry Now?’, is part of a trend in China for what is known as online-to-offline (O2O) services. These include taxi hailing and restaurant review apps that link smartphone users with offline businesses.