Following its series B round funding in May, Guangzhou-based outbound car-rental platform Zuzuche.com has closed its series B+ round with GF Securities-owned direct investment fund GF Xinde Investment Management as the lead investor. The two investment rounds brought the company RMB 700 million.
Bin Li, the company’s co-founder, said the money will be used for market education, product optimization and branding.
Founded in July 2011, Zuzuche provides outbound car-rental services via its website and App for Chinese customers. The company, which operates in North America, Europe and Australia, has over 60,000 off-line stores and has served more than 5 million customers. The company has nearly 400 employees at present.
Chinese customers often have difficulties in communication and dealing with driving license, insurance and service when booking car-rental services in foreign countries. Zuzuche removes the biggest stumbling block by offering a simple international driving license certification process.
So far, desktop is still the main medium for booking by most Zuzuche customers as there is a long lead time in booking and deciding car types and pick-up locations. However, as the lead time is shortening while the market matures, more bookings will be made via App.
Mr. Li said the company provides convenient round-the-clock services in Chinese to customers, to facilitate services for customers’ highly personalized needs in insurance and customer service.
The service-intensive nature of the business demands high operational efficiency, and Mr. Li said the company has achieved stable profit margin in each product line since 2014 when the business began to return a profit.
Zuzuche aims to build a one-stop outbound self-drive tour ecosystem to provide more personalized travel services. (Translated by Claire)
