Warburg Pincus leads $70m round for China job site Liepin
Warburg Pincus has led a $70 million Series C round of funding for Liepin.com, a Chinese online recruitment services provider, with participation from existing investor Matrix Partners China.
The company claims this is the largest investment into a Chinese recruitment services firm in five years.
Headquartered in Beijing, Liepin.com operates a platform that connects employers, headhunters and job seekers. Formerly known as Lietou.com, the company changed its name to compete with Linkedin, a social media site for professionals.
The site formed a joint venture with Sequoia China and China Broadband Capital Partners to expand into the China market.
Earlier this year, Linkedin launched a new simplified Chinese site with a view to connecting over 140 million Chinese professionals with its 277 million existing members globally. Liepin currently has a database of more than 10 million professionals and 100,000 registered headhunters.
The new capital will be used for product and technology innovation, as well as research and development. Matrix Partners committed undisclosed sums in Liepin's Series A and B rounds in 2011.
A similar transaction came last week when IDG Capital Partners and China Growth Capital provided a Series A round for recruitment website HunterOn.com worth a reported $10 million.
"Warburg Pincus has been following the internet-based recruitment sector closely in recent years and was impressed with Liepin's unique business model and disruptive changes Liepin has brought to the recruitment sector," Julian Cheng, managing director at Warburg Pincus and head of North Asia technology, media and telecom (TMT) investment, said in a statement.
"We like its revolutionary business model, the team's entrepreneurship and capability, and have conviction in the growth potential, of Liepin."
Warburg Pincus has invested more than $15 billion in TMT companies, including existing portfolio companies online marketplace 58.com, RDA Microelectronics, Xueda Education and mobile device manufacturer Tianyu in China.
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