Lalamove on track to become next start-up unicorn from Hong Kong
Logistics venture backed by Xiaomi’s Lei Jun will use the US$100 million raised in the current round of funding to expand in Indonesia and Malaysia
Hong Kong logistics start-up Lalamove said on Wednesday that it has raised US$100 million in the latest round of funding, placing its valuation to close to US$1 billion, giving further impetus to its expansion plans in Southeast Asia and maintain its market leadership in China.
The funding round was led by ShunWei Capital, a venture capital firm that counts Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun as one of its founders. The investment round also saw participation from previous investors such as Xiang He Capital and Hong Kong’s MindWorks Ventures.
Lalamove chief executive Chow Shing-yuk saidthat the funding places the company’s valuation at close to US$1 billion. Companies which are valued at above US$1 billion are typically labelled “unicorns” in the start-up world.
“We were originally planning to raise only US$30-40 million,” said Chow. However “we actually received about US$300 million [in offers from interested investors] but that was too much, so we settled on US$100 million.”
The company had previously raised about US$50 million in total funding.
But Chow’s goal is not to achieve unicorn status. In fact, he said that it is unlikely that the company will raise additional venture capital financing and will instead go for an initial public offering (IPO) within the next two to three years.
