Leading Chinese ride-hailing company, UCAR, officially announced on Tuesday that it secured a RMB 3.68 billion (USD 569 million) round of financing at the end of February, pushing the company’s valuation to RMB 27 billion. Additionally, UCAR applied to be listed on China’s New Third Board on Tuesday, a spokesperson from UCAR confirmed with AllChinaTech.
UCAR chairman Lu Zhengyao said that the investment was led by Yunfeng Capital, co-founded by Alibaba’s executive chairman Jack Ma. Lu also confirmed that a 9.8% stake in UCAR was acquired by Alibaba Group using RMB 2.8 billion before being transferred to Yunfeng Capital and Yunling VC.
Though not a shareholder of UCAR, Alibaba is now a strategic partner of UCAR. The two parties will join efforts to integrate the internet and transportation.
“A revolution is underway for both internet technology and the automobile industry,” said Lu. “As people’s consumption habits change accordingly, the whole transit ecology will reshape.”
A press release from UCAR echoes these sentiments, saying that the company will expand beyond its current ride-hailing and e-commerce services in the near future, and that its vision lies in building the transit ecosystem.
Following a business-to-customer model, UCAR went online in January of 2015 and landed USD 800 million within the next eight months before this latest round of funding, which was finally announced when the company submitted an application to list on China’s New Third Board, known for small-and medium-sized Chinese enterprises.
Data from Analysys International reported that UCAR held 13.4% of China’s private car-hailing market in Q3 2015, third to Didi Kuaidi and Uber.
(Top photo from Baidu Images)