Chinese industrial supplies e-commerce site Zhenkunhang has closed a USD 315 million Series E round led by Jack Ma’s private equity (PE) firm YF Capital, marking the largest fundraising deal so far in China’s industrial supplies sector, according to Zhenkunhang.
A slew of state-owned companies including China Structural Reform Fund Co Ltd; CIC Capital Corporation, which is a subsidiary of Chinese sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corporation; and Xiamen C&D Corporation Limited, also joined the funding round. Existing investors like Tencent (HKSE: 0700), which led the firm’s USD 160 million Series D round in June 2019; Eastern Bell Capital; and Matrix Partners China also contributed new funds.
The firm has now raised more than RMB 4.5 billion (USD 668 million) since taking on its first investment in 2016.
Founded in 1998 in Shanghai, the company started as a local distributor for multinational lubricant and adhesive makers such as Shell and Dow Corning, but shifted to e-commerce in 2014, connecting maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) product suppliers with companies in need of such products.
Zhenkunhang now carries more than 4 million MRO products in 28 categories, serving over 15,000 companies in sectors such as automobiles, mining, cement, chemicals, and electricity, according to its website. The company operates a series of warehouses covering an area of 40,000 square meters. It also runs a self-operated transportation fleet to deliver goods across China.
“The company has already been the leader in the industrial product sector, with the widest business scope and the most comprehensive serving capabilities, as well as the fastest growth,” YF Capital said on Wednesday.
“As an investment vehicle for state funds, we will tie up with Zhenkunhang, which has already cooperated with more than 30 centrally administrated state-owned enterprises (SOEs) so far, to help SOEs procure transparently to cut costs and increase efficiency, in a move to boost the structural reform in China,” Song Qing, chairman of China Structural Reform Fund Co Ltd, wrote on a WeChat post.
