Daily Tech Snippet: March 10

• Airbnb raises $1 billion in latest round of funding: Online room renting service Airbnb Inc said on Thursday it had raised $1 billion in its latest round of funding, valuing the company at $31 billion.The company turned in a profit on an EBITDA basis in the second half of 2016 and expects to continue to be profitable this year, the source said, adding that Airbnb had no plans to go public anytime soon. The company is locked in an intensifying global battle with regulators who say the service takes affordable housing off the market and drives up rental prices.Airbnb raised $447.85 million as part of the funding, a source close to the company told Reuters. The company said in September it had raised about $555 million as part of the same round of funding. Airbnb, which operates in more than 65,000 cities, has enjoyed tremendous growth as it pushes ahead with its plans of global expansion.

• Millennials buy more clothes on Amazon than any other website: Clothing is probably not what most people think of when they think of Amazon. But the datacontinues to show they should. Case in point: Amazon registered the most apparel sales in 2016 of any online retailer in the U.S. for shoppers aged 18 to 34 — yes, millennials. The e-commerce giant accounted for nearly 17 percent of all online clothing sales to this demographic last year, more than doubling the market share of the No. 2 seller, Nordstrom. One other interesting finding from the chart above: Stitch Fix, the young company that sends personalized assortments of clothing to customer homes, is only five years old and already cracked the Top 10. And its online market share among millennials is almost equal to that of household brands like Macy’s and Gap, and larger than Banana Republic and British fast-fashion site Asos. Stitch Fix has a huge following in the middle of the U.S., fueling a business that has as much as $1 billion in annual revenue, according to industry estimates.

• Alibaba seeks $5 billion loan amid tech financing rush: Basis Point: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is in talks with banks to raise $5 billion in new funding, sources told Thomson Reuters' Basis Point, amid a flurry of fund-raising by China's tech giants. Alibaba is looking to raises the funds offshore via a bullet loan with a five-year maturity, with the aim of using the proceeds for general corporate purposes including refinancing, the sources said. The plan comes as key rival Tencent Holdings looks to raise up to $2 billion in new debt funding, with competition heating up amongst the country's Internet firms domestically and overseas.