China used car platform Guazi finalizes $250m Series A round

The names of investors were not disclosed but local media identified reported that Sequoia Capital, GX Capital, Hike Capital, Welight Capital and StarAngelFund all participated.

Guazi started out as a subsidiary of online-to-offline (O2O) local services platform 58.com in 2014; it spun out from the group in November of last year. The start-up connects individual car sellers with buyers and has faciliated more than 120,000 sales in 179 cities. The company employs 1,500 automobile technicians to evaluate the condition of used cars put up for sale and to offer after-sales services such vehicle financing and auto insurance.

The company claims to have more than 1.25 billion daily active users on its mobile app. This is more than double the totals of second and third-largest players in the market, Renrenche and Youxinpai, Guazi CEO Haoyong Yang told local media in a press conference. Part of the Series A round will go towards a RMB1 billion ($150 million) investment in branding and marketing, with Chinese movie star Honglei Sun recently hired as brand spokesperson.

Last week, Renrenche raised $150 million in the initial tranche of its ongoing Series D round of funding. The tranche was led by Prometheus Capital, China Minsheng Investment, Han Fu Capital and Xin Jun Capital.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Technology
• Consumer
• China
• TMT
• automobiles
• Sequoia Capital
• Growth capital