Logistics start-up Lalatech pursues Hong Kong IPO

The move comes less than a year after Gogox, a rival logistics player formed through the merger of Hong Kong’s GoGoVan and an affiliate of mainland China-based 58.com, raised HKD 771.4m (USD 98.3m) on the same exchange. Gogox slumped on debut and never recovered. The stock currently trades a 90% discount to its IPO price with a market capitalisation of HKD 1.4bn.

Lalatech was founded in 2013, initially under the EasyVan brand. A year later, it switched to Lalamove and expanded into the mainland, using the name Huolala. The company continued entering new markets – Southeast Asia, followed by Latin America and South Asia – and broadened the scope of its services, covering less-than-truckload (LTL) logistics as well as freight matching and home-moving.

Lalatech now claims to be the largest logistics transaction platform in the world based on closed-loop freight gross transaction value (GTV) in the first half of 2022. Over the entirety of 2022, the company facilitated 427.5m fulfilled orders with a global freight GTV of USD 6.72bn, connecting with 11.4 average merchant monthly active users (MAUs) in more than 400 cities across 11 markets.

There are three main strands to the business model: a digital platform that matches merchants looking to ship goods and carriers that have spare capacity, with the latter paying membership fees and commissions; integrated logistics services for large enterprises as well as LTL and home-moving services; and vehicle sales and leasing services.

Revenue reached USD 1.04bn in 2022, up from USD 844.8bn a year earlier. Approximately 90% of revenue came from mainland-based services, and of the mainland sub-total, 54.7% was freight platform services, 29% was diversified logistics services, and 6.7% was vehicle sales and leasing.

Lalatech’s net loss narrowed from USD 2bn in 2021 to USD 49.1m in 2022. The company also posted an operating profit for the first time – USD 2.6m compared to a loss of USD 660.9m a year earlier. User growth, effective monetisation strategies, rising revenue and improved gross margins, and better operating efficiency were cited as contributing factors.

Gross margin rose from 38.5% in 2020 to 53.7% in 2022, while operating expenses as a percentage of our revenue fell from 73.9% to 57.9%. It is also notable that sales and marketing expenses fell by more than two-thirds in 2022.

Hillhouse is the largest external investor with 9.67%, followed by Sequoia Capital China on 9.11%, MindWorks on 8.34%, Shunwei on 6.91%, Crystal Stream Capital on 6.77%, and Xiang He Capital on 4.25%, according to a prospectus.

Other investors include Lighthouse Capital, 01VC, Sirius Venture Capital, Tencent Holdings, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), Eastern Bell Capital, Axiom Asia, D1 Capital Partners, Boyu Capital, Aspex Management, Tiger Global Management, Gaw Capital Partners, Archerman Capital Management, Vitruvian Partners, C Ventures, Meituan, Ping An Insurance, and FWD Life Insurance.

Lalamove has received around USD 2.5bn in private funding, AVCJ Research’s records show. MindWorks, Crystal Stream, Sirius, and Geek Founders provided the first round in 2015 and the company achieved unicorn status on closing a USD 300m Series D in 2019. Sequoia arrived in 2020, leading a USD 515m Series E; a year, it co-led an approximately USD 1.5bn Series F with Hillhouse.

The prospectus also references a Series G round of USD 230m that closed in 2022.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• IPO
• Technology
• Support services
• Hong Kong (China)
• Logistics
• MindWorks Ventures
• Sequoia Capital
• Hillhouse Capital Management
• Shunwei Capital Partners
• Crystal Stream Capital
• Xiang He Capital