House-sharing platform Xiaozhu receives USD 120M for Series E
Xiaozhu
Founder: Kelvin Chen Chi
Founded in: 2012
Financing status: RMB 793 million (USD 120 million) for Series E financing in 2017
House-sharing platform, Xiaozhu, received USD 120 million for Series E on November 1st to invest in building an ecosystem for house sharing services.
China’s online house-sharing industry entered an explosive period last year. While house-sharing has thrived in Western countries, it has not been easy for foreign house-sharing companies to develop in China. “Only local companies with a sense of mission and commitment to the domestic market can stand a chance in gaining leadership in the Chinese market.” According to Kelvin, the founder of Xiaozhu.
Xiaozhu is a house sharing platform that provides customers with short-term vacation house sharing services. Its platform is available for online communication and transaction between tenants and landlords. Its goal is to enable customers to deeply experience local life.
Founded in 2012 in Beijing, Xiaozhu has listings in over 400 destinations in and outside of China, with offices in more than 20 cities. Meanwhile, there are over 200,000 houses available for rental on its platform with a variety of themes, including hostel, courtyard, garden, old building, green forest, sky room, and so on.
Xiaozhu has existing investors that include Joy Capital, Morningside Ventures, and Capital Today, which also participated. This new financing round was led by Yunfeng Capital, which was founded in early 2010, and named after Alibaba chairman, Jack Ma, and Target Media founder, Yu Feng. The capital will be used to invest in technology to further enhance the security of house-sharing and building a sustainable platform ecosystem for the whole industry.
(Top photo from 699pic.com)
