Jardine Matheson leads $37m round for Hong Kong's Pickupp
Jardine Matheson has led a $37 million Series B round for Hong Kong-based package delivery start-up Pickupp.
Jardines, a conglomerate with interests spanning retail, real estate, hospitality, agriculture, and automotive among other industries, positioned the investment as part of a deepening commitment to digital technologies. It said there is significant opportunity for future strategic partnerships in this vein.
“We are seeing more strategic partnerships growing across the e-commerce and logistics industries. Recently, we have been supporting [Taiwanese e-commerce giant] PChome with our last-mile delivery service, which enables them to deliver the best seamless O2O experience driven by technology and innovation,” Pickupp CEO Crystal Pang said in a statement.
“This round of investment once again demonstrates our customers’ faith in the capability and reliability of our last-mile delivery services, which have earned the trust of notable MNCs [multinational corporations] and digital-first businesses.”
Pickupp offers last-mile delivery and related technology services to retail and e-commerce operators in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Taiwan. The company has worked with 24,000 merchants and 100,000 delivery agents since its inception in 2016 and claimed to increase the size of its user base by 94% during 2021. In addition to PChome, clients include 7-Eleven, Lazada, and Rosewood Hong Kong.
The 7-Eleven partnership, agreed in September, was a significant milestone. It entails a self-pickup service, whereby customers retrieve parcels at 300 7-Eleven locations across Hong Kong with Pickupp providing bulk collection support. The operation, which includes satellite warehousing and a GPS tracking service, is being rolled out in partnership with local smart locker provider Alfred24.
The Series B also featured PChome, Reefknot Investments, Cathay Venture, Swire Properties, and Drive Catalyst, the corporate VC arm of Far Eastern Group. Reefknot contributed at least $5 million, according to AVCJ Research.
Jardines, PChome, Swire, Drive, Cornerstone Ventures, and e-commerce company ZipX provided a $15 million Series A extension in July. This followed a Series A of undisclosed size in November 2020 from Swire, Gobi Partners, Cyberport, Spark Ventures, SpartkLabs Taipei, and Vision Pluss Capital Partners.
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