Hong Kong’s Lalamove secures $300m Series D

Hong Kong-based delivery start-up Lalamove - known as Huolala in mainland China - has raised $300 million across two tranches in a Series D round led by Hillhouse Capital and Sequoia Capital China.

Other participants include Eastern Bell Venture Capital and PV Capital, as well as existing backers Shunwei Capital, MindWorksVentures, Xianghe Capital and 01 Venture Capital.

The new funding will be used to expand Lalamove’s coverage in mainland China, Southeast Asia and India, as well as exploring new verticals such as corporate client services and car dealerships.

Lalamove, founded in 2013, operates a platform that connects drivers of vans and trucks with customers who need to transport goods. Over the past three years, the company has expanded into Southeast Asia and is now profitable in Thailand. It also covers more than 40 Chinese cities, including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Chongqing. At present, Lalamove has about three million drivers and over 28 million users on its platform.

The company has raised more than $1.6 billion in venture funding since inception. A Series A round led by Crystal Stream in 2015 was followed by a $10 million bridge round from investors including MindWorks and AppWorks. MindWorks then led a $10 million round in 2016. In 2017, the company closed a $30 million Series B and a $100 million Series C. The latter was led by Shunwei.

The company’s major rival is Hong Kong-based Gogovan, which raised $250 million last year from a group of investors including InnoVision Capital, the Russia-China Investment Fund, Qianhai FoF, Hongrun Capital, Alibaba Group’s logistics business Cainiao, and Chinese O2O player 58 Daojia. Gogovan’s operations encompassed more than 300 cities and eight million users across Greater China, Singapore, India, and Korea as of June last year.