Beijing Facishare Technology, a Chinese Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) firm specialising in customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, has raised $75 million to upgrade its product suite and ramp up global expansion plans.
Eastern Bell Capital, a Chinese venture capital (VC) firm that manages 27 billion yuan (almost $3.8 billion), led the transaction, with participation from Qiming Venture Partners and Xiamen C&D Emerging Industry Equity Investment. Cygnus Equity, an investment bank in China, served as the exclusive financial adviser of the deal.
The strategic financing comes just over one year after Facishare raised $30 million from Guiyang Venture Capital, a subsidiary of the state-owned Guiyang Industrial Holding Group in a Series G round.
Beijing-based Facishare serves large- and medium-sized corporate clients with its key product, Sharecrm, a customer relationship management (CRM) system that enables clients to manage all interactions with their current and potential customers to help improve customer relationships and grow businesses.
Its CRM solutions can unify customer and company data from many sources, including Tencent’s enterprise communication platform WeCom and its equivalent, Alibaba Group’s DingTalk. Such tools even use artificial intelligence (AI) to better manage relationships across the entire customer lifecycle, spanning departments like marketing, sales, digital commerce, and customer services.
Facishare has served over 6,000 corporate clients in areas like advanced technology, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), agriculture and animal husbandry, and large-scale manufacturing, according to its website. Its clients include food giant Orion Corporation, IT services provider Digital China Group, LED display company Absen, medical dressing products maker Zhende Medical, and pork producer Muyuan Foodstuff, just to name a few.
According to the website, the firm employs over 1,000 people, including over 300 R&D professionals. It operates branches in 13 Chinese cities including Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou, with marketing and service centres across over 50 cities nationwide.
In a post on its WeChat official account on Monday, Facishare said that the strategic financing will allow the firm to further improve its products to realise “integrated, platform-based, industry-grade connectivity” for upstream and downstream players across different industries.
Facishare also stressed its ambition to compete in the global CRM market after initiating its go-global plans in 2019. In March 2023, the firm opened a branch in Hong Kong.
Furthermore, the firm plans to strengthen its corporate governance, enhance operating efficiency, expand corporate partners, and get the business “ready and profitable” for a future initial public offering (IPO). It is also looking for M&A opportunities to acquire smaller players.
Since its inception in 2011, Facishare has secured multiple funding rounds from investors including IDG Capital, Northern Light Venture Capital (NLVC), DCM, and Hillhouse Investment. Its biggest round so far is a $100-million Series D round in July 2015.