Bike-sharing startup Hellobike receives undisclosed Series B+ in tens of millions of USD
Hellobike
Founder: Yang Lei
Founded in: 2016
Financing status: 2017 Series B+ round amounting to hundreds of millions in RMB (tens of millions in USD)
Bike-sharing startup Hellobike on Sunday received an undisclosed Series B+ financing round in tens of millions of USD from Weltmeister to integrate its bike-sharing services with Weltmeister’s car sharing services.
China’s bike-sharing battle continues to intensify, as with our earlier tech financing reports on bike-sharing giants such as ofo, Hellobike, and Mobike. Though some bike-sharing startups have failed and exited the bike-sharing industry, leading industry players still continue to attract funding for future expansion plans, as bike-sharing businesses currently cover up to China’s third-tier cities. Hence, bike-sharing businesses have the potential to expand even further in China. Now, the problem that they encounter is how to start bike-sharing in cities that have low smartphone usage and are unable to accept new innovations so quickly. Thus, it is important that they consider how to provide this unique type of services there.
Recently, bike-sharing startup Hellobike announced its Series B+ financing round. A Shanghai startup founded in 2016, its bike-sharing services cover 90 cities across China. Unlike ofo and some other bike-sharing startups that compete for market share in China’s first-tier cities, Hellobike prefers placing its rental bicycles in some second and third-tier cities to become the top bike-sharing service provider in these cities. Hellobike has more than 100 million users, and it has placed more bicycles than ofo and Mobike in some second-tier cities such as Hangzhou and Nanjing.
This Series B+ financing round was from Weltmeister, which is an electric vehicle manufacturer in China that provides consumers with a convenient and vastly improved mobility experience. The capital will be used to place more bicycles in new cities, and Hellobike aims to expand to over 300 cities with more than 5 million rental bicycle placements across China. It will also partner with Weltmeister to combine its bike-sharing services with Weltmeister’s car sharing services.
B2B auto parts trading platform Baturu receives USD 88.5 M for Series C
Baturu
Founded in: 2013
Financing status: RMB 600 million (USD 88.5 million) Series C round in 2017
B2B auto parts trading platform Baturu on Friday received USD 88.5 million for its Series C financing round for market expansion.
Baturu is a business-to-business (B2B) auto parts trading platform that supports the automotive after-sales industry with its auto parts supply chain system which consists of online transactions and onsite auto parts installment services.
For its business partners from the automotive after-sales industry, they can easily finish a centralized procurement on Baturu’s online trading platform. Baturu also helps them to quickly deliver goods at a lower price based on its auto parts supply chain system. The prices of auto parts on Baturu’s online trading platform are made transparent, which helps its partners to reduce costs on auto parts and in turn providing cheaper after-sale services to their clients.
Founded in Guangzhou in 2013, Baturu has reached partnerships with more than 200 suppliers. Now, there are over 800,000 units of auto parts available for sale on its platform.
This Series C financing round was led by Warburg Pincus and Eastern Bell Venture Capital. The capital will be used to expand its business in the automotive after-sales industry, as well as introducing big data to improve the efficiency of its business.
(Top photo from hellobike.com)
