Delivery start-up Lalamove gets $10m bridge round

This is a bridge round on top of the $10 million Series A round that company raised in January and it will go towards furthering the company's China expansion plans. Lalamove currently operates in four cities in the mainland - Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Foshan - and wants to enter 12 more in the next three months.

The service, previously known as EasyVan, was set up in 2013 through the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park's incubation program. Its app connects delivery drivers with customers who need to move goods from one place to another. The company, which already operates in Singapore, Bangkok and Taipei in addition to Hong Kong and China - is targeting 50 cities throughout Asia by 2016.

Lalamove is still known as EasyVan in Hong Kong and brands itself as Huolala in mainland China. The company claims to have a base of 30,000 drivers across all its markets.

"While very few start-ups thrive in both the Southeast Asia and China markets, we are thrilled to show such growth in the past 18 months," said Shing Chow, Lalamove's founder and CEO, in a statement. "This continuous success validates our hypothesis - delivery as it exists in Asia isn't optimal and bringing technology to this aging industry reduces drivers' idle time, increases speed and efficiency while lowering costs."

Direct competitor Gogovan, which has also branched out from Hong Kong to offer services in Southeast Asia and mainland China, received a $10 million round in June following a $6.5 million investment in August of last year.

Crystal Stream is an early-stage focused fund set up by Chenchao Zhuang, CEO and co-founder of Chinese travel site Qunar.com.

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