Chinese ride-hailing firm T3 Chuxing has sealed its extended Series A round at 1 billion yuan ($139.9 million), led by local investment firm Hongtai Aplus.
The firm, backed by state-owned automakers FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor, and Changan Automobile Group as well as Chinese tech juggernauts Tencent and Alibaba, is pushing a pre-IPO financing round prior to its public listing plan on the Hong Kong bourse and the “A-shares market”. However, the firm did not divulge the timelines for the pre-IPO round and listing.
The extended Series A round will help the Nanjing-registered firm expand its user base in a market that has long been dominated by market leader Didi Global. The firm will also use the proceeds for R&D of its driverless autonomous ride-hailing service platform, according to a release published by Hongtai Aplus.
Founded in April 2019, T3’s service network has covered over 120 cities in China, with a daily order number of 3 million. The firm, which boasts being China’s second-largest ride-hailing platform, differentiates itself by targeting the younger generation— over 70% of T3’s 200 million registered users are born after 1985 and 1990, local media reported, citing public data.
Previously, the firm, also known as T3 Mobility or T3 Go, secured 7.7 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) in a Series A funding round to ramp up its market expansion in October 2021 led by CITIC Investment Holdings, which is owned by financial conglomerate CITIC Group.
In July 2021, China’s Internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), ordered Didi Global to suspend new user registration as it conducted a cybersecurity review of the firm. Its app was taken down until January 16 this year after the 18-month suspension was scrapped.
The firm was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in June 2022, one month before the CAC fined the firm for a record penalty of 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) owning to cybersecurity and data violations.
The COVID-19 pandemic came as a double whammy to the business, which saw its revenue drop 19% year-over-year from 173.8 billion yuan ($24.3 billion) in 2021 to 140.8 billion yuan ($19.7 billion) in 2022, according to the firm’s annual report for the year ended December 31 2022.
Local rivals have since expanded its market share, including Ruqi Mobility, the ride-sharing platform under Chinese state-owned automaker GAC Group; and Geely’s Cao Cao Mobility.
In June, Ruqi snagged 842 million yuan ($117.2 million) in a Series B round led by Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group, the controlling shareholder of GAC Group.