Chinese logistics platform Lalamove has bagged USD 1.3 billion in two transactions in its Series F round led by earlier investor Hillhouse Capital and is expected to collect another USD 200 million in another deal, 36Kr reported on Wednesday. It will value the company at USD 10 billion. Less than a month ago, it closed a USD 515 million Series E round.
Investors have been favoring China’s land cargo shipping players recently. Manbang, which was created in November 2017 after the merger of truck-hailing rivals Yunmanman and Huochebang, raised USD 1.7 billion from investors including Sequoia Capital China and Hillhouse in November. Didi Chuxing’s new cargo shipping unit, which went online in 2020, only planned to raise USD 400 million in December, but instead attracted USD 3 billion in bids.
Lalamove has been in operation in 352 cities on the Chinese mainland by the end of September 2020, since its launch in Hong Kong in 2013, connecting 480,000 drivers and serving 7.2 million monthly active users. The company’s customers include individuals who want to move home, as well as corporate clients such as e-commerce giant JD.com, state-owned oil refiner Sinopec, and retailer 7-Eleven.
The number of orders went up 50% in 2020, despite a 93% year-on-year decrease in February when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Chinese mainland.
The company says that a Shenzhen resident surnamed Chen was its most frequent user in 2020, placing 5,085 orders in total, with an average price of RMB 152 per order, while another man, surnamed Li, from Guangzhou was the most active driver, fulfilling 3,722 orders during last year. Wan, a driver from Shaoxing in the Zhejiang province, traveled the longest distance to fulfill an order. The man shipped fabrics from Shaoxing to Urumqi, in Xinjiang, a total of 3,970 kilometers.