Led · Equity · Apr 2021

Plus develops self-driving truck technology centered on its driver-in autonomous driving solution, PlusDrive. The company is commercializing PlusDrive with truckmakers and fleet partners, including a jointly developed automated truck with FAW and pilots with large fleets such as SF Express. Plus is in the final stages of certifying PlusDrive for commercial operation in China and plans to start mass production of the PlusDrive-powered automated truck this summer. The additional funding will enable Plus to expand global operations and commercial deployment across the U.S., China, Europe, and other parts of Asia. Plus says its technology delivers safety, efficiency, comfort, and sustainability benefits to truck makers and fleets. Financially, Plus announced a new $220 million funding round that is described as an extension of a $200 million round announced last month. Plus builds a full‑stack automated driving system for heavy trucks and works with truck manufacturers, shippers, and fleet operators to deploy that system at scale. The company says mass production of its automated trucks will begin in 2021 and it has more than 10,000 pre-orders. Plus plans to use recent funding to accelerate global commercialization, scale deployments in the U.S. and China, expand into Europe and other parts of Asia, and build a sales and support network to help fleets integrate its system. It also intends to grow its engineering team to continue developing its autonomous driving technology. Plus has completed pilots with major logistics providers, completed a cross‑country commercial freight run with Land O’Lakes, and entered a joint venture with FAW to be an exclusive autonomous trucking technology provider. The company was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Cupertino, California.

Led · Equity · Mar 2021

Ushopal operates as a new luxury beauty and new retail group focused on niche global luxury beauty brands, selling at high-end retailers such as Harrods, Le Bon Marché and Neiman Marcus. The company was founded in 2017 by CEO Lu Guo and is based in Shanghai, China. Its portfolio includes brands such as Natura Bisse, Juliette Has a Gun and Chantecaille, and reported gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2020 surpassing USD 200m. Ushopal provides omni-branding and growth capabilities for portfolio brands, including a fleet of more than 2,500 luxury influencers, an in-house content studio and branding team, an omni-channel growth team, Tmall retail operations and global logistics. It also operates Bonnie & Clyde (BC), a chain of multi-brand brick-and-mortar stores and experience centers. The company intends to use new funding to support continued growth in China and the Asia Pacific region.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2021

Xingsheng Youxuan operates a community group‑buying online grocery platform that aggregates orders for discounted grocery sales. The company was an early entrant to the sector and has grown a footprint across 1,100 cities and 70,000 rural towns in 17 provinces. In 2020 its platform recorded gross merchandise value (GMV) of RMB 40 billion (USD 6.3 billion) and it set a target of RMB 80 billion (USD 12.4 billion) for the year. For the first six months of 2021 its average monthly GMV was RMB 3 billion, indicating it is behind schedule on growth targets. The business faces sectorwide headwinds — daily GMV across the industry fell from more than RMB 200 million to RMB 150 million in May — and rising operating costs amid tougher competition from internet giants. The company has raised capital across multiple rounds to sustain operations and scale logistics and supply‑chain efficiency. Xingsheng Youxuan operates a community group-buying grocery service that delivers online bulk orders to offline stores located inside or near residential communities. Headquartered in central China's Hunan province, the company runs its service in 13 provinces and municipalities, covering more than 6,000 counties and over 30,000 towns. It reported more than 8 million daily orders and an estimated gross merchandise value of 40 billion yuan in 2020. Demand for its service has surged amid COVID-19 social distancing, which has driven more consumers to order groceries from home. The sector faces increasing regulatory scrutiny, with authorities saying they will tighten oversight of community group buying and urging internet giants not to compete with unreasonably low prices. The company is backed by investors including Tencent and Tiger Global, and previously received a $700 million investment from JD.com in December. Xingsheng Youxuan operates a community group-buying platform that aggregates neighborhood orders for fresh produce and daily essentials, with designated group leaders buying in bulk and coordinating distribution. The business began as a chain of community-focused convenience stores before launching its group-buying service. Its model reduces per-customer delivery costs by delivering to group leaders and leveraging scale advantages versus door-to-door online grocery delivery. That efficiency has driven rapid uptake but prompted pushback from food manufacturers, wholesalers and supermarket chains seeking to restrict partnerships with group-buying platforms. Financing activity has been significant: the company raised $200M from KKR and others in September 2019 and a $46M capital injection led by Tencent in May 2019; reports also say it raised $800M earlier this year from KKR, Sequoia and others (not publicly confirmed). Most recently JD agreed to invest close to $700M under a preferred-share purchase agreement, according to an SEC filing. Xingsheng Youxuan (Xingsheng Selected) operates a community group-buying platform that offers groceries at bargain prices to residents who live near each other. The company was founded in 2018 as the e-commerce unit of local supermarket chain Furong Xingsheng and is headquartered in Hunan province. It is described as Tencent-backed and competes with rivals such as Alibaba-backed Nice Tuan. Xingsheng is set to complete a C+ financing round worth USD 800 million led by KKR. The post-investment valuation reached USD 4 billion, four times its valuation a year earlier. An initial public offering will likely follow the latest financing, according to the report. Xingsheng Selected operates a fresh-produce chain of small neighborhood stores and relies on a community group-buying model. Customers purchase via WeChat groups led by a group-buying leader or through a WeChat mini program, with orders picked up at stores or delivered. The company is headquartered in Changsha and has expanded from Hunan into 12 provinces, targeting growth in small cities and townships. Investors include Tencent and Capital Today. Gross merchandise value grew from RMB 80 million (USD 11.6 million) in September 2018 to nearly RMB 700 million in June 2019. The company was valued at USD 700 million in the KKR deal.

Participated · Series D · Jan 2021

Fourth Paradigm provides an enterprise AI platform and end‑to‑end technology services, offering a full‑stack AI product matrix spanning compute, OS, production platforms and business systems. Its product suite includes Sage AIOS, Sage HyperCycleML, Tianshu (天枢) and SageOne, aimed at lowering the barrier to AI deployment for enterprises. The company says it has commercialized numerous use cases and expanded over six years from the financial sector into retail, manufacturing, energy, government, healthcare, internet, media, logistics, agriculture and high‑tech. Fourth Paradigm has been recognized as the #1 vendor by IDC in China’s machine learning platform market (2018–2020 H1) and placed in the leader quadrant of Forrester’s machine learning platform wave. After the latest financing it plans to accelerate industry‑focused deployments, build an enterprise AI ecosystem and cultivate advanced AI talent. No revenue or user metrics are disclosed in the articles. 4Paradigm develops and deploys enterprise-level artificial intelligence solutions to solve real-world industry problems. Its core offerings are applied AI systems used by clients in finance, retail, energy and other sectors to drive production innovation, sustainability, agile supply chains, and more efficient resource allocation. The company has provided operational capabilities to help clients shift workflows and business models online. Since 2014 it has also contributed AI technology to COVID-19 response efforts, including precision screening, real-time scenario analysis, and infection contact sourcing systems. The recent financing further strengthens its shareholder base and supports plans to build an AI-based enterprise-level ecosystem in partnership with strategic investors like Cisco and Lenovo. The funding round improved its financial position, producing a nearly $2 billion post-money valuation.

Participated · Series E · Dec 2020

Zuoyebang provides online courses, live lessons and homework help for kindergarten through 12th grade students via a mobile app. The company claims about 170 million monthly active users and roughly 50 million daily users. In fall 2020, its paid livestream classes reached more than 10 million students, an industry record the company cites. Much of the user growth was driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, but founder Hou Jianbin said Zuoyebang expects online education to continue growing long term and will invest in K-12 classes and expand its product categories. Financially, Zuoyebang has raised a total of $2.93 billion to date, including the latest $1.6 billion round. Zuoyebang is a Beijing-headquartered online learning app targeting K-12 students in China's national compulsory education system. Its product offers online courses, live lessons, and an AI-powered homework help feature that lets students photograph problems and receive identified solutions. The company reports 170 million monthly active users, about 50 million daily users, and more than 12 million paid subscribers. Founded by Baidu in 2015 and spun out as an independent startup a year later, Zuoyebang competes with rivals such as Yuanfudao. Investors and market research underline the sector opportunity: iResearch projects China's online education market could be worth $81 billion in two years. SoftBank counts Zuoyebang among portfolio companies that have shown growth in recent quarters. Zuoyebang is an online education platform that leverages technology and the internet to provide K-12 teaching resources and live courses. The company operates an app and relaunched zhibo.zuoyebang.com, an online live course service covering primary, middle and high school curricula. Its research team has built a scientific system combining classroom interaction, teachers and personalized content to help students improve grades. The app has nearly 60 million monthly active users. The company plans to use new capital for teaching and research and to continue developing its live-course platform. Zuoyebang was founded in September 2015 and is led by CEO Hou Jianbin in Beijing. Zuoyebang began as part of Baidu Zhidao and operates an after-school service where students ask and answer study-related questions. The one-year-old service reports over 50 million registered users, about 3 million daily users, and more than 950 million Q&A entries on file, and is operational within 113 schools and educational centers across China. It is available on Android and iOS and has fewer than 100 employees, nearly two-thirds focused on R&D. Baidu has spun Zuoyebang out as part of a broader initiative to promote independent quality assets and open some services to external investment. The platform faces competition in China's crowded education market from offerings by Tencent and Alibaba. Zuoyebang is positioned to run with a more startup-like structure backed by external investors to leverage additional networks and autonomy from Baidu.