Telecommunications and internet group SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 led a $312m series D round for China-based intelligent retail technology provider Huice yesterday.
Legend Capital, the venture capital offshoot of conglomerate Legend Holdings, also took part in the round, as did Hillhouse Capital’s GL Ventures unit, Citic Private Equity and GIC.
Founded in 2012, Huice has built an artificial intelligence-powered software tool called Wangdiantong that enables e-commerce merchants to manage their domestic and global operations including orders, warehousing and delivery.
SoftBank had already taken part in a $100m series C round for Huice in December 2020 through China Ventures Fund I, a vehicle run by its SoftBank Ventures Asia subsidiary. The round was led by GIC and also backed by Legend Capital and GL Ventures.
Legend Capital had led a $22.8m series B round for the company seven months earlier, after China Ventures Fund I had joined TPG Growth to supply over $14.5m in series A funding for the company in mid-2019. Ningbo Weijia Investment is also among its earlier investors.
Kentaro Matsui, SoftBank Group managing director and managing partner at SoftBank Vision Fund, said: “The [ software-as-a-service] industry has entered an explosive phase, where the enterprises’ increasing digitalisation demand has led to the retail industry’s integrated online and offline development.
“Since its inception, Huice has established itself as an industry leader through its innovative software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service product systems, and we are pleased to work with [Huice founder and CEO Xiao Bin] and the Huice team to support the growth of full-scale, full-category e-commerce companies of all sizes – small, medium and large.” (Translated from Chinese by Global Corporate Venturing)
