China VC Weekly: Blockchain, Trucking, E-commerce

Jun 23, 2021, 13:33pm2021/10/14 14:02:59 Pandaily

In last week’s VC news, blockchain startup Rangers Protocol brought its valuation to $63 million, investment firm Yinke PE closed a new RMB-denominated fund, UAE fund poured funds into a Chinese trucking startup and cross-border fashion e-commerce platform Doublefs raised as much as $100 million.

Blockchain infrastructure firm Rangers Protocol valued at $63 million

Chinese blockchain infrastructure startup Rangers Protocol is now valued at $63 million following a fundraising round. The company was previously known as Rocket Protocol.

Investors in the round include Pantera Capital, Framework Ventures, Huobi Ventures Blockchain Fund, Alameda Research, Hashkey Capital, SevenX Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, Incuba Alpha Holdings, Consensus Lab, Morningstar Ventures, Yuanyuzhou Ventures, and AU21Capital, among others.

Rangers Protocol said in a statement that Polkastarter, a cross-chain decentralized exchange, has also conducted in-depth cooperation with them as a strategic partner.

About Rangers Protocol

The Rangers Protocol platform integrates cross-chain protocols, nonfungible token (NFT), and Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) protocol.

Yingke PE raises 1 billion yuan for new fund

Chinese investment firm Yingke PE announced on Wednesday it has raised 1 billion yuan ($155.4 million) for a new RMB-denominated fund. This brings the firm’s total fundraising this year to over 13 billion yuan ($2 billion).

The news follows the final closing of an earlier 10 billion yuan fund in May as Yingke PE increased its stakes in the biomedicine and hard technology fields. A few days earlier, Yingke PE had also closed its third US dollar fundraising to back global biomedicine companies. However, the management did not disclose the size of the USD Fund III.

In a WeChat announcement, Shanghai-based Yingke PE said its total fundraising amount this year is already close to that of the entire 2020 ($2.3 billion).

About Yingke PE

Founded in 2010, Yingke PE has built a portfolio of more than 200 firms, nearly 60% of which are in the biomedicine field, according to its website.

UAE fund injects funds in Chinese trucking startup

UAE sovereign investment fund Mubadala plans to invest $100 million in Full Truck Alliance Co., a Chinese trucking startup that markets itself as “Uber for trucks,” Bloomberg reported.

Full Truck Alliance (FTA) said on Tuesday it is aiming for a valuation of over $20 billion in its US initial public offering, which would make it another high-profile Chinese stock market listing in New York this year.

This coincides with a private placement in which the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and Mubadala will each purchase $100 million worth of Class A ordinary shares, Bloomberg said.

About Full Truck Alliance

The company runs a mobile app that connects truck drivers to people who need to ship items within China. It was the world’s largest digital-freight platform by gross transaction value last year, according to research from China Insights Consultancy commissioned by the company itself.

Cross-border fashion e-commerce startup Doublefs raises $100 million in latest round

Cross-border fashion e-commerce platform Doublefs has closed a new round of financing raising as much as $100 million, according to an announcement on Friday.

Sequoia Capital China, IDG Capital, 5Y Capital, HIKE Capital and Capital Today have joined the round.

Previously, Doublefs had secured about $30 million in its angel round last year at a valuation of $150 million.

Doublefs founder Jocey Zhang is a former chief technology officer at SoftBank-backed car trading firm Chehaoduo and has also worked with Microsoft, The Walt Disney’s holding video platform Hulu and Chinese financial and wealth management player CreditEase.

About Doublefs

With headquarters in Beijing, Doublefs specializes in sports and leisure clothes. In an internal letter, Zhang claimed the platform will provide quality yet affordable fast-fashion products to global consumers through building an advanced supply chain in China and Southeast Asia.