Baidu Capital leads $156m round for China’s Huochebang

All-Stars Investment – which co-led a $115 million initial Series B round in December of last year in conjunction with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – and other existing investors have also re-upped. The company expects to close a third tranche imminently.

Operated by Truck Alliance, Guiyang-headquartered Huochebang connects cargo shippers and truck drivers through its online platform and mobile app, with a view to improving operational efficiency in long-haul logistics.

At present, there are 3.7 million trucks registered on the platform, with about five million delivery orders processed each day. Rather than taking a commission for every journey, Huochebang makes money by selling toll road admission cards and top-ups for these cards. The company sold about one million electronic toll collection (ETC) cards worth RMB20 billion ($3 billion) last year.

In addition to delivery matching services, Huochebang provides financial services to truck drivers including insurance, micro-lending and leasing through partnerships with local insurers and commercial banks.

The start-up raised approximately $100 million across three tranches of Series A funding. The first, which closed in March 2015, was led by Eastern Bell Venture, while the second was led by Tencent Holdings in August of the same year. Existing backers DCM and Eastern Bell took part, as did newcomer Hillhouse Capital. Genesis Capital led a $35 million third tranche in April of 2016.

Following the new investment, Huochebang plans to utilize all available resources to expand its services and customer base, as well as to improve the truck and cargo matching platform, Huochebang’s CEO Tianguang Tang said in a statement. The company will also continue to develop after-market services and financial services for truck drivers.

Launched in October last year with an initial funding of RMB20 billion, Baidu Capital targets at mid- and late-stage internet industry deals. It hired Jenny Wu, a former chief strategy office at Chinese online platform Ctrip International, as a managing partner for the fund. Previous investments include Nio, a Shanghai-headquartered electric car start-up formerly known as NextEV.

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• Topics
• Greater China
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• Support services
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• China
• TMT
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