Hellobike, China’s third-largest bike-sharing company by MAU, raised as much as US$700 million in a Series E1 round from investors including Ant Financial and Fosun, marking the largest fundraising of the startup to date, local media Yicai reports on Friday.
In December 2017, Ant Financial, EV maker WM Motors, Fosun, and GGV Capital joined Hellobike’s Series D round which was worth RMB 3.279 billion (approx. US$ 522 million), according to data compiled by Chinese data service JingData.
The Alibaba-backed bike-sharing startup mulls to raise an E2 round which will probably see participation from existing investor WM Motors.
Bike-sharing in China is a highly capital-driven business. One month ago, Hellobike’s prominent rival ofo has raised US$866 million in a round led by China’s e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba. Another formidable competitor is Mobike that merged with the world’s largest O2O platform, Tencent-backed Meituan-Dianping, one week ago.
Read more: Meituan Acquires Bike-sharing Startup Mobike to Keep Diversifying Business
Hellobike claims to have 100 million registered users and around 10 million daily rides across 180 Chinese cities.
Alibaba is a major shareholder in two of China’s top 3 bike-sharing startups, Ofo and Hellobike. Tencent founder Pony Ma has previously said that Alibaba leverages on Hellobike to promote its mobile payment. Dockless bikes are also the perfect portal to collect offline data.
Read more: Alibaba-backed HelloBike to Complete $1B New Financing, Fueling Rivalry with Mobike & Ofo
