(Editor: Leona)

Two Chinese investment firms put 1 billion yuan into Wanda E-commerce, part of Dalian Wanda Group.

Dalian Wanda Group Co. Ltd., one of China’s largest operators of shopping malls and department stores, has received an investment of 1 billion yuan ($161 million) in its online retailer unit, Wanda E-commerce. The funds came from two Chinese investment funds, Centec Networks and Xude Rendao, which now hold a 3% and 2% equity interest in Wanda E-commerce, respectively.

According to Wanda Group, the investment values 4-month-old Wanda E-commerce at 20 billion yuan ($3.22 billion).

Wanda E-commerce was established in Hong Kong, China in August 2014 and supported by Wanda Group and other two Chinese Internet giants, Tencent and Baidu, both rivals of China’s dominant e-commerce company, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent so dominant the Internet arena in China that they’re often referred to collectively as “BAT.” Baidu is China’s leading search engine, account for 77.31% of Chinese online searches engine in 2014, according to Chinese research firm iResearch. Tencent Holdings Limited is the operator of major social and messaging platforms in China. Tencent says its mobile social app Weixin has exceeded 450 million monthly active users.

Dalian Wanda controls a 70% stake in Wanda E-commerce, while Tencent and Baidu each hold a 15% stake. The three companies say they plan to invest 20 billion yuan ($3.22 billion) over the next five years, with a focus on winning sales from consumers both online and in bricks-and-mortar stores, a cross-channel strategy often called O2O (online-to-offline) in China.

A big operator of offline department stores, hotels and shopping malls in China, Wanda Group recently has made a number of e-commerce investments.

That includes acquiring Chinese online payment platform 99Bill last month. According to the data from Chinese consulting firm iResearch, 99Bill ranks No. 4 after Alipay, Tenpay and China Unionpay in online payments, with a 6.9% market share at the end of Q3 2014. Alipay is connected to Alibaba and Tenpay to Tencent. China Unionpay is China’s national debit card network.

99bills can help Wanda Group advance its e-commerce and finance-related businesses, Wanda Group says.

Wanda Group says Wanda E-commerce is building a new cross channel e-commerce system, which includes free wireless network coverage in Wanda 159 shopping malls in China, and several mobile apps designed to drive more traffic to those malls.

“We hope our cross-channel e-commerce system can improve consumers’ shopping experiences. The system can help Wanda connect offline and online channels more closely. For example, consumers can make reservations on their mobile phone before they enter our restaurants. Also, fashion consumers can visually see the results of wearing the clothes through smartphones and pay directly via their phones,” says Wang Jianli, the founder and chairman of Wanda.

Wanda Group plans to launch this new system by the fourth quarter of 2015, the company says.