Chinese Airbnb-like site Xiaozhu announced on Wednesday that it has secured its Series C+ and Series D rounds of financing, totaling USD 65 million.
Chinese private equity firm Capital Today led the Series C+ financing in 2015; the Series D financing is led by global investment institutions BAI Capital, followed by Morningside Capital, Capital Today, and Magic Stone Alternative Investments.
“With the new financing, we will enhance efforts in branding, innovation, and building a chain of services in sharing accommodation,” said Chen Chi, CEO of Xiaozhu. “In the meantime, we’ll also speed up our process of marching into the overseas markets.”
Formerly known as Xiaozhu Duanzu, which is literally translated as “Little Pig Short-term Rentals”, the platform changed its name to Xiaozhu, “Little Pig”, in June. It went online in 2012, and has become one of the most popular platforms for sharing accommodation. The change of name may indicate that “the little pig” has a vision beyond short-term rentals.
Chen pictures Xiaozhu becoming a platform that offers various services and products, including long-term rentals, traveling, cleaning, photography, and installing and furnishing – all of which are in fact services built upon Xiaozhu’s short-term rental business, Chinese media Qdaily reported.
Backed by the leading classified ad website 58.com and the search engine giant Baidu, the platform now has around ten million active users, enjoying resources of 100,000 property listings, covering 301 cities in China. It expects a YoY orders growth of 500% in 2016.
(Top photo taken from Baidu Images)