Didi rival T3 Chuxing closes nearly $1.21 billion Series A round - PingWest

Didi rival T3 Chuxing closes nearly $1.21 billion Series A round

Didi rival T3 Chuxing closes nearly $1.21 billion Series A round

23 hours ago

T3, short for "top 3", announces that it has raised nearly $1.21 billion (7.7 billion yuan) in Series A round, led by Joint Unions of CITIC Group, with the participation of Yingtong Technology, LY.com, Redview Capital and Virtue Capital, according to news outlet Jiemian.

The investment was the largest single-tranche fundraising in China's car-sharing service sector since 2018, reported by STAR Market News.

Details:

Nanjing-based T3 has landed its services in 41 cities in China, with 54 million accumulated registered users.

In the strategic fundraising round in March 2019, T3's investor list was stellar, with the participation of three state-owned Chinese car makers and the country's largest internet companies, Alibaba and Tencent.

Context:

T3 was seen as a solid competitor to Didi, although the latter's market share sat at about 90%. Last month, Didi's daily active users (DAU) dropped 30% after its IPO triggered intense national regulations.

Another player in the arena is Caocao Chuxing. The ride-hailing unit of Chinese automaker Geely announced a $589 million (3.8 billion yuan) Series B raise last month. Overall, there are approximately more than 100 Chinese online ride-hailing platforms in competition.

"There will be a turning point in this sector, where Didi doesn't have obvious advantages because there'll be a large amount of needs for customized services," Cui Dayong, CEO of T3, told Jiemian last year. An example of customized experiences is that users can decide the car models they order.

In an interview with EV Observer, Cui pointed out that, with business to customer (B2C) model, instead of Didi's customer to customer (C2C) model, T3 values the compliance with regulations, the user security and their experience, and thus may have a competitive edge. The company aims at a 20% market share in each city it entered.

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