Who is the founder of Alibaba Group?

Jack Ma is the founder of Alibaba Group. More precisely, he led the founding of Alibaba.com with 17 friends and students in Hangzhou on June 28, 1999.

The original business was a business-to-business online marketplace connecting Chinese suppliers with buyers abroad. It began in Ma’s apartment and later expanded into consumer e-commerce, digital payments, logistics, cloud computing, entertainment, and other technology services.

A common mix-up is treating Jack Ma as the company’s sole founder. He is the universally recognized founder and public face of Alibaba, but the venture was launched by a larger founding team. Another confusion is with Pony Ma, founder of Tencent, or Robin Li, co-founder of Baidu; neither founded Alibaba.

Alibaba received major early investment from firms including Goldman Sachs and SoftBank. Its growth eventually made it one of China’s most influential technology companies, while Jack Ma later became its executive chairman and remained closely associated with the brand.