Rhea Liu
58.com announced yesterday its subsidiary 58 Daojia, or “58 to your door”, has succesfully closed an A-series funding of USD 300 million with investment from Alibaba, KKR and Ping An Ventures.
This round of funding boosts 58 Daojia’s valuation to over USD one billion. 58.com claims that even after this round of funding 58.com will still have the majority stake in 58 Daojia. New investors are expected to soon own about 30% of the company.
58 Daojia was established last September. It offers home services like cleaning, carwashes, same-city delivery and beauty services to over 30 cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
“The increase of 58 Daojia’s overall orders and service providers has exceeded our expectations,” Chen Xiaohua, 58 Daojia’s CEO said. ”It proves that our strategy to increase market share and reduce the cost of acquiring new users by improving customer retention is effective.”
58 Daojia is considered a Tencent-backed company having received multiple investments from Tencent over the past year. But as Tencent investment, JD.com, begins to develop its O2O home services, 58 seems increasingly more likely to join hands with Alibaba.
Baidu is emerging as another strong competitor in the field. It just launched its first brick-and-mortar business Baidu Shangmen, or Baidu ‘To-Your-Door’, in Xi’an. Baidu also collaborates with established niche O2O service providers including massage service operator Yisheng Daojia, and cleaning service operator eJiajie.
58.com merged with Ganji.com in April. The two companies moved headquarters to a new office last Thursday in the 798 district, an industrial park in north Beijing.
