
China trucking player secures $200m Series E

For-U Smart Freight, a Chinese road freight logistics company, has raised a $200 million Series E round led by China Structural Reform Fund, China life Investment, and Greater Bay Area Homeland Investments.
Existing investors including Parantoux Capital, Legend Capital and Matrix Partners China re-upped, according to a statement.
Founded in 2015, For-U focuses on full-truckload intercity shipping, which typically involves transporting goods of 3 tons or more. The full-truckload and less-than-truckload segments of the logistics industry are generally seen as fragmented, whereas express delivery is more concentrated.
For-U matches fleet operators with shippers, including several of China's express giants, such as JD Logistics, Deppon Express, ZTO, and SF Express. It also works with automotive manufacturers like Qingdao Doublestar and Great Wall Motors, and fast-moving goods players such as JDB Group, Wong Lo Kat and Budweiser. It claims to rank first among tech-driven road freight platforms by operating revenue from trucking.
The company has fulfilled more than three million orders, accumulating billions of real-time data points. These filter into three main applications: price quotations, order splitting, and complementary services. For-U therefore claims to address the key logistics pain points of identifying goods, agreeing on prices, and loading and freight settlement.
It wants to create industry service standards and launch China's first inter-city vehicle standardization product. According to China Insights Consultancy (CIC), the country's trucking market was worth RMB6.1 trillion in 2020, with the full-truckload segment contributing RMB3.7 trillion.
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