Tiangu Information Technology, the China-based operator of electronic signature technology provider eSign that counts financial services provider Ant Group as an investor, secured RMB1.2bn ($186m) in series E funding yesterday.
Venture capital firms IDG Capital and Sequoia China joined investment manager Hidden Hill Capital to co-lead the round, which included GIG Asset Management, Grand Flight Investment, Sealand Innovation, Shenzhen Fortune Caizhi Venture and Wens Investment.
Founded in 2002, Tiangu Information Technology provides a legally valid digital signature software platform called eSign (also known as Tsign) that helps public and private organisations in its home country digitalise bureaucratic processes.
The company’s partners cover clients such as Ant Group and its founder, Alibaba, as well as Baidu, Huawei, Hikvision and government agencies including Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government and Chengdu Human Resources and Social Security Bureau.
Jin Hongzhou, eSign founder and CEO, said: “We will invest more resources in areas including contract management, document processing and artificial intelligence technology to build social trust with e-signatures.” (Translated from Chinese by Global Corporate Venturing)
Real estate developer China Evergrande Group affiliate Evergrande High-Tech Group, investment firm Shenzhen Capital Group and VC firm Fortune Capital co-led the company’s $151m series D round in November 2020.
Grande Flight Investment, Far East Horizon, Fanchuang Capital, Gobi Partners China and THE Capital filled out the participants in the series D round.
Ant Group, Gobi Capital and Eminence Ventures co-led eSign’s $100m series C round, in late 2019, which came in the wake of a $23.1m series B-plus round led by Shenzhen Qianhai Wutong M&A Fund Management the previous year that also featured Tsinghua Holdings-backed THG Ventures.
Oriental Fortune Capital and Zheyin Jiyou Investment Management had injected $7.8m into the company across two rounds in 2015 and 2016.
