On September 3, Yao Junhong, founder and CEO of Dasouche, said in an internal email that Dasouche has completed a new round of financing of 578 million US dollars. This round of financing was led by Primavera Capital and Morningside Venture Capital, Alibaba, Haoxiang Capital, Lingfeng Capital, Paladin Equity Investment, Kaiming Investment, Sino-Russian Fund, Sunshine Insurance, CreditEase and other institutions. Gao Hu Capital continued to serve as a financial advisor for financing.
Yao Junhong, founder and CEO of Da Sou Che, revealed in the email that the main uses of this round of financing are three aspects: one is to increase investment in technology and accelerate the digitalization, online and intelligence of the automobile circulation industry; the other is to promote the development of a car to accelerate service upgrades and continuously improve user experience; the third is to strengthen the management and construction of the organization and enhance the collaborative operation ability of the new retail ecology of Da Sou Che.
According to public information, the last time the big search car announced financing was in November 2017, led by Alibaba to raise a total of 335 million US dollars, before the big search car also received Ant Financial, Warburg Pincus Investment Group, China Merchants Bank International and other famous institutions investment.
According to the internal email of Dasouche, there are nearly 4,000 community stores under Dasouche, covering 30 provincial administrative units and 313 cities, and the channel has sunk to 1,877 districts and counties. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, there were 2,851 county-level administrative divisions in China at the end of 2017, and the coverage rate of Dasouche community stores has reached 66%.
Pop a car is a flexible car purchase plan launched by Big Search and Ant Financial "10% down payment, first use and then buy". Consumers buy a car by popping a car. In addition to picking up the car to the store, other transaction processes can be completed online. Alipay allows users with good credit to pass credit approval in 15 minutes. During the 618 promotion this year, the pop-up car transaction exceeded 13,000 units, the contract amount exceeded 2 billion, and the 618 Tmall car sales list topped the list.
In an internal email, Ms Yao also announced two important wholly-owned acquisitions: Carrier Butler, an integrated service provider for warehousing and logistics in the automotive supply chain, and Blaxo, a provider of Enterprise Resource Planning for the car dealership group.
The following is the full text of Yao Junhong’s email to all employees of the company
All the comrades of the big search car:
I am happy to share with you a piece of good news: big search car has completed a new round of financing, the total amount of 578 million US dollars.
At the moment of tightening money in the capital markets, in less than a year, the company’s financing amount has reached 913 million US dollars, which is really hard to achieve. This is inseparable from the efforts and persistence of all comrades-in-arms. I want to applaud and praise you for every load-bearing forward.
The financing was led by Primavera Capital and Morningside Venture Capital, with Alibaba, Haoxiang Capital, Lingfeng Capital, Paladin Equity Investment, Kaiming Investment, Sino-Russian Fund, Sunshine Insurance, CreditEase and other institutions participating.
The main uses of this financing are threefold: first, to increase investment in technology and accelerate the digitalization, online and intelligence of the automobile circulation industry; second, to promote the acceleration of service upgrades and continuous improvement of user experience; third, to strengthen the management and construction of the organization and improve the collaborative operation ability of the new retail ecology of the big search car. We have reason to believe that with the strong support of the capital partners, the pace of the big search car will only get faster and faster.
Looking back, with every step forward, we can see the exciting changes that have been brought to the entire auto trading industry by the massive car search. Looking to the future, changes will continue to happen.
1. The big search car has promoted the process of comprehensive digitalization of the automobile circulation industry
In the past year or two, I have often been asked: Why is it that the big search car can always iterate rapidly in the fog and keep running in the right direction? I have carefully considered this question, and the answer lies in my belief that the future automobile circulation industry will inevitably move towards digitalization, online, and intelligence.
From the beginning to the end, we have been working hard to move forward with this belief. We use the Internet and big data to link car retailers across the country, and use technology to drive them to improve the efficiency of each link. As of August 2018, we have digitized more than 90% of the country’s medium and large used car dealers, more than 9,000 4S stores and more than 60,000 new car second networks through the SaaS system. It is expected that the online transaction volume of our SaaS system will exceed 350 billion yuan in 2018, which is double that of 2017.
Based on the SaaS system, Soche has established the largest automobile circulation digital network in the country. Today, we can proudly say: Soche is the builder of the new retail digital infrastructure for automobiles.
2, the big search car has created a new species in the new retail field of automobiles: a car
In 2016, Soche and Ant Financial launched a new car purchase model in China, which created a new model of "10% down payment, first use and then buy". Based on this model innovation, we integrated the automobile circulation supply chain to form a closed-loop ecosystem of online and offline combination and opening up new and used cars. This is the new retail car.
Today, there are nearly 4,000 offline stores, covering 30 provincial administrative units and 313 cities, and the channel has sunk to 1,877 districts and counties. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, there were 2,851 county-level administrative divisions in China at the end of 2017, which means that the district and county coverage rate of Dam Car community stores has reached 66%.
According to the current business development status and pace, I have set two small goals for you: by the end of 2018, the bomb car will have 8,000 offline stores, covering 90% of China’s districts and counties; within three years, the bomb car will complete the national high-density mesh layout, and eventually achieve one store per 10 square kilometers to cover China’s urban population.
What this data means is that we will create jobs for tens of thousands of families, while also bringing a new car experience to hundreds of millions of users. This is our opportunity, but also our responsibility.
3, big search car to become the leader and link, deeply empower the upstream and downstream of the industry chain
Today, in the entire automobile new retail ecosystem, big search car has gradually become the leader and link of all parties to the transaction, and this is one of the important reasons why investors choose us.
Dasouche has initially formed a new retail ecological map in the field of full circulation of automobiles. Including the companies that have joined the Dasouche family, such as Cheyi Pai, Car Dealer 168, Car Manager, and Bexo, we can empower merchants in every link of the transaction chain and help them serve the C-end more efficiently. In the future, we will also cooperate more with the overall ecology of Alibaba and Ant Financial.
I hope that every comrade-in-arms can keep in mind the role of the big search car in the entire ecology: if the "new retail" is compared to a person, what the big search car needs to do is to lead everyone’s intelligent brain and link the whole blood, and comprehensively and deeply empower the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.
Ma Yun has a saying that impresses me deeply: "We must become the engine to influence others to shine." From now on, each of our comrades in arms will bear heavier responsibilities. We must work hard step by step to not only realize the dream of big car search to let more users use good cars, but also to ignite other people’s dreams. Only by linking everyone’s dreams together can we send out greater energy.
Comrades-in-arms of the big search car, let us continue to walk side by side and work together.
Yao Junhong
September 3, 2018
[First Line] is a product of Tencent News, providing you with exclusive and first-hand business information as soon as possible.