(Yicai) April 1 -- Chen Hang, the founder of Alibaba Group Holding's DingTalk, will return to the e-commerce giant as the chief executive of its enterprise communication software, The Paper reported today, citing Alibaba insiders.

Moreover, the owner of Tmall and Taobao plans to acquire shares in HHO Digital Technology, the operator of video shopping platform 7sGood which Chen founded after his previous stint at Alibaba, the report added.

Chen left the Hangzhou-based tech behemoth in 2021 to pursue entrepreneurship after DingTalk was repositioned under Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. That same year, he founded HHO, securing investments from firms including Vision Plus Capital. HHO has since ventured into various fields with brands such as HHOLove, which offers smart pet products, and HHOGene, a line of wireless earbuds.

HHO has CNY30 million (USD4.1 million) in registered capital, and Chen, the executive director and general manager, holds 68.8 percent of the shares, according to corporate data platform Tianyancha. During its angel round in July 2021, the company was valued at CNY3 billion (USD413 million).

In August 2023, Alibaba spun off DingTalk from its cloud division, transitioning it to independent operations.

DingTalk originated from Alibaba’s Laiwang, a WeChat-like messaging application that struggled to gain traction. In 2014, Chen and his team pivoted to develop DingTalk, targeting enterprise users. The app debuted in January 2015.

A key part of Alibaba's artificial intelligence offering, DingTalk now serves over 700 million users and collaborates with more than 5,600 ecosystem partners. Its AI tools handle over 10 million daily inquiries, according to the company.

Editor: Emmi Laine