Chinese bicycle sharing service Mobike raised $600 million in its latest funding round led by Tencent, taking total funding raised since October 2016 to $900 million.
Mobike is available in about 100 cities in China, and the company now aims to speed up its global expansion, targeting launches in 200 cities by the end of the year.
It claims 100 million users in China who take more than 25 million rides a day. The startup recently launched the service in Singapore, and is running a trial involving 1,000 bikes in UK city Manchester.
In addition to Tencent, existing investors Sequoia, TPG and Hillhouse Capital provided financing in the latest round, Mobike said in a statement. New investors included investment banks Bocom International, ICBC International and asset management firm Farallon Capital.
Mobike, which launched in Shanghai in April 2016, provides an app enabling users to find and hire a bike using a smartphone.
Davis Wang, Mobike co-founder and CEO (pictured) said to accelerate its global expansion it is also rolling out a global IoT network in partnership with Qualcomm, Ericsson, Vodafone, China Mobile and Huawei.
In February it raised $215 million in a previous funding round, bringing its total funding to more than $300 million. The round was led by Singapore’s state investor Temasek Holdings and hedge fund Hillhouse Capital.
Mobike in January teamed with China Mobile Shanghai and Ericsson to trial low-power IoT technology on a live network, enabling its bikes to be more accurately located and coverage to be expanded to areas where traditional networks generally can’t reach, such as underground parking lots.
Rival Ofo raised $450 million in May from a number of investors, including Chinese ride-sharing platform Didi Chuxing.
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