One of the Chinese government's biggest investment funds reportedly put $100 million into Airbnb's billion dollar fundraising round, which closed last week.
The rumour appears to have come from Sky News and has been reported in the APAC and Chinese financial pages over the past few days.
Nobody from the China Investment Corporation (CIC) or Airbnb has commented or confirmed the report, which is being widely seen as a move on Airbnb's part to get closer to the authorities in China.
Last November Airbnb launched Airbnb China as a separate unit and noted at the time that "the Chinese government has highlighted the important, positive impact the sharing economy can have on China’s economic growth."
Other Chinese investors which have a confirmed equity interest in Airbnb include China Broadband Capital (CBC) and Sequoia China. They have been involved in the business since August 2015.
Within China, there are a number of well-funded well-known brands operating in the domestic, inbound and outbound home rentals sector, including China's biggest OTA Ctrip.
Last October, less than a month before the Airbnb China announcement, Ctrip announced an acquisition and partnership with Tujia. Ctrip, which owns a stake in Tujia, sold the home rentals business of Ctrip and Qunar to Tujia.
Tujia owns and operates short-stay apartment blocks across China, and was often misleadingly referred to as the Airbnb of China. However, the deal with Ctrip has separated out its distribution activities from its real estate interests, meaning the comparisons between it and Airbnb as more accurate.
Many of the reports about the CIC stake resurrect the long-running rumour that Airbnb is interested in buying Zhubaijia, a site which offers Chinese outbound travellers home stay properties in 60 countries.
To keep things in perspective, reports suggest that CIC has more than $200 billion tied up in overseas assets, so a $100 million punt on Airbnb is a drop in the ocean.
But from Airbnb's perspective, the ripples from that drop could be disproportionately important in terms of it now having a relationship in place with the regulators in the world;s largest travel market.