Global web business Alibaba has become the latest firm to invest in instant messaging technology, taking a $215 million (£130 million) chunk of US-based chat application Tango.

Alibaba led the investment round, which ploughed a total of $280 million into Tango, with existing investors Access Industries, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Jerry Yang, a co-founder of Yahoo Inc, making up the rest.

The deal followed hot on the heels of Facebook’s marquee acquisition of Whatsapp in a transaction worth $19 billion a month ago.

Tango has 70 million active users and 200 million users in total, with most traffic coming from the US, Middle East and Far East. Reports say the new money values Tango at close to $1 billion.

It is just one in a series of investments by Alibaba, a Chinese internet company, which is expected to list on the New York Stock Exchange soon at a value approaching $200 billion.

“The way we see it, this is just the beginning for Tango. We believe that messaging apps will fundamentally change the way content and services are distributed,” said Tango founders Uri Raz and Eric Setton in a blog post.

“We are very excited to continue to build upon our foundation of free communications, while extending into new growth areas in social networking and content.”