Shein, the online fashion giant that started in China, recently had an interesting pitch for both Amazon and Google. As it considered buying more advertising on Google properties and more cloud time on either Amazon or Google, Shein executives wondered whether either company might be interested in buying a stake in it, people familiar with the situation said.

The idea didn’t get very far. Neither U.S. firm appears to have been interested, although it wasn’t a crazy notion. Google and another tech giant, Microsoft, in the past have invested in firms that have done cloud business with them. The fact that Shein casually pitched the proposal suggests it has noticed those other deals and thought getting an investment from a big U.S. firm could help it defray the cost of buying services from those firms.