Tencent invests $120m in Chinese CRM provider

Founded in 2011, the company's early funding rounds featured the likes of Sequoia Capital China and Matrix Partners China. Tencent invested RMB280 million ($39.1 million) in January 2017 as part of a Series D and then put in another RMB100 million in April 2018 for the extended Series D round.

Xiaoshouyi's name means "easy sales" in Chinese. The start-up claims to leverage big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to help companies acquire new customers and better serve existing cleints. It works with companies like Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Lenovo, Shanghai Electric and Foxconn.

In May, Xiaoshouyi launched a customer operations cloud platform in conjunction with Tencent. Tencent's WeChat social networking service has one billion users. Many companies are using WeChat mini programs or official accounts as a customer communication channel. They include Zhiketong, a WeChat-based direct sales service for high-end hotels, which last month secured RMB300 million in Series C funding.

Alibaba Group is also involved in the CRM services space, having teamed up with global player Salesforce in July to launch a China strategy. Xiaoshouyi charges RMB90-600 per user per month compared to $25-300 for Salesforce.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Technology
• Early-stage
• China
• Sequoia Capital
• Matrix Partners
• Tencent