Tiger Global leads $100m round for China HR SaaS player
Moka, a Chinese software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider specializing in human resources services, has raised a $100 million Series C led by Tiger Global Management.
Existing investors including Blue Lake Capital, GL Ventures, GSR Ventures, and GGV Capital re-upped. The proceeds will go towards product development and innovation, as well as recruitment.
Hillhouse Capital led a RMB180 million ($27 million) Series B for Moka in 2019. GGV, GSR, and Xianghe Capital also took part in that round. FreesFund was the company's first institutional investor, providing seed funding in 2015, the year of its founding. Two more rounds - the first featuring GGV, the second featuring GGV and GSR - closed in 2017 and 2018.
Moka helps corporate customers with recruitment. It claims to be the largest provider of recruitment management systems in China by market share. The core technology is a smart resume analysis system, which collects and stores information on candidates in a standardized way, making it easier to identify suitable people.
At the end of 2020, Moka launched a second product expanding into personnel, leave, salary, and performance management. It links with the resume analysis system, enabling customers to move seamlessly between coordinating existing talent and considering new hires. The goal is to create a close-loop solution for HR.
Moka serves 1,500 corporates across 25 industries, including internet, retail, biotech, manufacturing, financial services, and real estate. More than 100 customers use both products.
Well-known customers include Tencent Holdings, Xiaomi, Qihoo 360 Technology, McDonald's, Anta Sports, Panasonic, China Pacific Insurance, real estate developer Vanke, soft drink brand Genki Forest, and battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology.
Over the past six years, the average purchase price has increased fivefold. At the same time, Moka claims there is increasing demand for more agile SaaS-based solutions rather than on-premise products.
"Tiger Global focuses on investment in SaaS-based products that provide both in-depth business value and an excellent user experience for customers. As a result, we are very optimistic about the growth potential of the Chinese SaaS market,” said Pengfei Wang, a partner at Tiger Global, in a statement.
Companies like Moka are benefitting from rising labor costs in China. It means companies are more willing to leverage technology to provide better solutions for workforce management.
Beisen, which claims to be the largest integrated human resources SaaS platform in China, raised $260 million in Series F funding in May. This followed a $190 million capital raise - across two tranches, a Series C of $50 million and a Series D of $140 million - by WorkTrans.
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