China P2P car-sharing site uuzuche raises $10m
Uuzuche.com, a Chinese peer-to-peer (P2P) car-sharing platform backed by Lightspeed China Partners, has raised $10 million in a Series A+ round of funding from Bitauto, a Chinese auto information web portal.
Established in early 2014, uuzuche focuses solely on P2P services, claiming to undercut traditional car rental costs by 30%. Car owners and drivers join the company's membership program through a UU-rental mobile app and can then share cars.
The company currently operates in seven Chinese cities - Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Haikou, Xiamen and Sanya - with over 65,000 car owners and 130,000 and car borrowers on the platform.
In September last year, Lightspeed led a $10 million Series A round for uuzuche, with participation from China Renaissance K2 Ventures and angel investor Wang Gang.
Uuzuche's expansion plans will be supported by Bitauto's existing resources in the areas of car sourcing, customer acquisition and marketing, according to an announcement on the company's official Weibo microblog.
Established in 2005, Bitauto provides pricing information and reviews on new and used cars. It also sells advertising and marketing services to car dealers and auto makers. AVCJ Research records show that the firm raised four rounds of funding between 2006 and 2009, from investors such as DCM, Legend Capital and Bertalsmann Asia. The company went public in 2010, raising $127.2 million.
Earlier this year, Chinese online retailer JD.com and its investor Tencent Holdings formed strategic partnership with Bitauto, committing a total $1.55 billion into the auto information provider and its investment unit - Yixin Capital.
According to consultancy firm Roland Berger, China's car rental industry saw compound annual growth of 29% between 2008 and 2013, reaching RMB34 billion ($5.4 billion) in value. It is expected to grow to RMB65 billion in 2018.
Mobile apps based on car-pooling have attracted considerable VC interest. Last month, Sequoia Capital has led a Series B round of funding for Tiantian Yongche, a Chinese P2P car-sharing platform. In December, Ping An Ventures, a VC arm of insurer Ping An Group, and Qiming Venture Partners co-led a $30 million Series A round of funding for Baojia.com.
More on Greater China
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.