On-demand logistics company Lalamove has raised $515 million in Series E funding, as announced on its website (the company is known as Huolala in China). This round was led by Sequoia Capital China Fund, with participation from Hillhouse Capital and Shunwei Capital–all returning investors.
This brings the company’s total funding to $976.5 million, according to a report by TechCrunch.
Launched in Hong Kong in 2013, Lalamove operates its on-demand logistics service in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore Taiwan, and Vietnam, as well as Brazil and Mexico City outside of Asia. The logistics firm entered the United States market in October this year, and it reports 480,000 monthly active drivers and 7.2 million monthly active users.
Lalamove’s customers are mainly individuals doing point-to-point logistics transfers, although the company also counts corporate and e-commerce clients such as JD.com, Sinopec, and 7-Eleven as logistics partners in some markets.
The company earlier raised a $300 million Series D in February 2019, which was intended for its India expansion. However, India banned several Chinese-based apps citing security concerns, and Lalamove was among those that were taken out of that market.
This Series E round will be primarily utilized for expansion into smaller cities in Mainland China, the company reports.
Zhou Shengfu, Lalamove Founder, has expressed confidence in the continued impact of mobile transformation in the logistics industry: “The market will further expand and penetration into fourth and fifth-tier cities will continue to accelerate.”
“The comprehensive popularization of mobile Internet, the rapid development of artificial intelligence, big data and cloud services have accelerated the process of digitalization and intelligentization of logistics,” says Shen Nanpeng, Global Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital, commenting on the fundraise.
Featured image credit: Lalamove