China’s ride-booking App Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur has secured RMB 600 million from Beijing Minqi Management Consulting Co., Ltd, a subsidiary of China Oceanwide Holdings Group. This gives China Oceanwide 11.67% stake in Shouqi, according to a China Beijing Equity Exchange file on October 24.
The funds raised in this round will boost the working capital for expanding operations related to its businesses, including exploring new cities as markets, vehicle rental, technology R&D and market expansion.
Xulei Hu, CMO of Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur, revealed earlier that the company was not profitable yet, as the marginal profit from certain cities could not make up for the overall shortfall. He expected Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur to break even by the end of this year.
Prior to the current round of financing, Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur received RMB 220 million from a member company of China Jianyin Investment Limited in its series A round in December, 2015. At that time, the newly launched startup had deployed about 1,000 cars in Beijing, and was still in a testing stage in other cities in preparation for its nationwide operation of its network.
Currently, Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur claims presence in 46 cities with more than 20 million registered users, over 40,000 operating vehicles and more than 500,000 orders every day. It has obtained the licenses for operating internet renting car service in 26 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Guangzhou. It is the first operator in 16 cities to obtain the certification for conducting offline services.
