China used car trading platform Uxin raises $500m
Chinese used car trading platform Uxin has raised $500 million in a new round of funding led by TPG Growth, Jeneration Capital and China Vision Capital.
Other investors including Warburg Pincus, Tiger Global Management, Hillhouse Capital, KKR, Huasheng Capital, and an investment fund launched by Chinese outdoor advertising business Focus Media also participated in the round.
Founded in 2011 by executives from listed online auto advertising business BitAuto, Uxin started as a B2B used-car online auction platform through Youxinpai. The company then introduced a network of physical centers and broadened its coverage of the used car industry under the Uxin brand.
It provides one-stop services for auctioning and trading of used cars - such as car evaluation, online payment, after-sales support and logistics services - for a wide range of clients including car distributors, used car dealers and individual car owners. Uxin also has an auto financing business and a social media platform to allow users to share their car purchase experience.
The company raised two rounds of funding - from Legend Capital, Bertelsmann Asia Investments, DCM and Tencent Collaboration Fund - before Warburg Pincus and Tiger Global led a $260 million round in September 2014. Six months later, KKR, Chinese search giant Baidu and US-based Coatue Management invested $170 million. At the time, the company claimed to employ over 1,000 specialists in 50 Chinese cities who inspect and certify the quality of used vehicles sold via its platforms.
Overall transaction volume through Uxin's online and offline platforms grew more than two-fold in 2016. About five million used cars were sold in December alone in transactions worth RMB3.7 billion ($536 million), CEO Kun Dai said in a statement posted on the company's official WeChat platform. It generated more than RMB150 million from these transactions.
Uxin expects to sell 800,000 used cars this year, taking the overall transaction value to RMB60 billion. Both used the car auction business and the trading business are already in profit.
The new capital will be used to scale up the company's business, improve services and strengthen its brand in the market.
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