Alibaba buys German data analysis start-up

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding has acquired German data analysis start-up data Artisans for about 90 million euros (80.92 million pounds), German business daily Handelsblatt reported in its Wednesday edition.

"This is a strategic acquisition," founders of the Berlin-based company, Kostas Tzoumas and Stephen Ewen, were quoted as saying.

Alibaba this week announced it was deepening its partnership with data Artisans and collaborating to build up a software to process large amounts of data.