A report by CNBC suggests Xiaomi managed to raise $1.5 billion in investment capital in its latest round of funding. Facebook, Alibaba, Airbnb and Russian ISP DST are among the companies investing in Xiaomi. This is the largest private financing ever received by a tech company since 2011, when Facebook managed to score roughly the same amount of money.

Xiaomi is the third largest smartphone maker and is expanding its business into wearable tech as well as TVs. If the investment goes through, as sources familiar to the deal are certain it would, Xiaomi will be valued at more than $40 billion. This is more than Sony and Lenovo evaluation combined.

CNBC comments that Alibaba and Xiaomi are similar as both gathered the attention of a lot of investors who were hesitant to join in. Now, they regret it as both companies skyrocketed and Alibaba's market capitalization is currently around $270 billion.

Xiaomi shipped 17.3 million units for the last quarter beating Lenovo with 16.9 million and LG with 12 million, according to the latest IDC market share report.

Source | Via