China-based bicycle sharing startup Hellobike has secured $350m in a funding round featuring carmaker WM Motor Technology and Ant Financial, the financial services affiliate of e-commerce group Alibaba, Reuters reported today.
The round, which also included venture capital firm Chengwei Capital, comes just over a month after Hellobike merged with Youon Ditan, an affiliate of publicly-listed bicycle sharing service Changzhou Youon Public Bicycle System.
Founded in 2016, Hellobike operates an app-based bike sharing platform with more than 80 million users. In contrast to some of the industry’s biggest operators, it concentrates on third and fourth-tier cities in China rather than the country’s largest urban centres.
The round follows a nine-figure renminbi investment of undisclosed size by WM Motor in Hellobike in July this year (RMB100m = $14.7m at contemporary rates).
Chengwei Capital and GGV Capital had previously provided an undisclosed amount of funding for the startup over three earlier rounds.
Ant Financial is already an investor in Youon, having supplied an undisclosed sum together with IDG Capital and Shenzhen Capital in February this year. It also provided an undisclosed amount of funding for another bicycle rental service, Ofo, in April 2017.