The round was led by Sequoia Capital China and Source Code Capital with participation from long-standing shareholder Hua Partners. In addition to five previous rounds of funding, including investments from influential institutions such as Fosun RZ and Shunwei Capital, the company has raised a total funding of nearly USD$200m.
The funding will be used on technical research and development, services enhancement, and nationwide market development.
Led by CEO Overmars Jiang, Casstime is an automotive aftermarket market company with a business model of “search engine + procurement platform”, which leverages a Google-style search engine that allows users to find the unique part number by entering the VIN and part name. Once a user has the part number, Casstime runs a smart matching algorithm to assign multiple suppliers that precisely fit the user’s past procurement behavior, quality needs, geographic area, delivery time requirement, etc. The workshop can then select the supplier it prefers, just as on an e-commerce sites like eBay and Amazon.
In addition, the company has set up a professional technician team that can provide remote technical support to workshops in order to deal with different vehicle makes and models.
In four years, the company has grown to become China’s largest procurement platform for auto spare parts and accessories. At present, Casstime operates in over 300 cities across China and features over 1,200 specially selected suppliers. More than 60,000 workshops are now customers.
FinSMEs
01/11/2019