Xinhua Net Beijing, July 6 (Reporter Liao Jia) Today, the full vehicle parts auto parts e-commerce Baturu announced the completion of a $100 million Series C financing round, led by Warburg Pincus, with existing investor Zhongding Venture Capital following on.

Baturu founder and CEO Zeng Wan Gui stated: "After this round of financing, we will further strengthen the company's refined operations, improve the offline warehousing and logistics system, and further expand market coverage nationwide." He also revealed that the next step will focus on the construction and operation of the South China central warehouse.

China is currently in the peak period of automobile consumption. With the rapid growth of domestic passenger car ownership and average age, the development of the automotive aftermarket has also attracted much attention. According to the "China Automotive Aftermarket Supply Chain White Paper" released on the same day by global strategic management consulting firm Roland Berger, the total scale of China's auto parts market is growing rapidly, with a compound annual growth rate of 20% from 2011 to 2016, and it is expected that the overall scale of the parts market will exceed 800 billion yuan by 2022.

The market space is vast. However, for a long time, the focus of the Chinese auto market has been on overall sales, with insufficient attention and investment in the automotive aftermarket, resulting in the obvious lag of China's automotive aftermarket development behind the automotive manufacturing industry. Coupled with issues such as information opacity and numerous tiers, it has led to a fragmented and chaotic overall market situation.

In order to solve the above "pain points," Baturu, established in 2013, adopted a brand-new e-commerce solution to launch an "Internet transformation" on the traditional auto parts industry, hoping to promote the optimization and upgrading of the entire industry and move automotive aftermarket transactions towards standardization and intelligence.

At the end of 2014, Baturu's full vehicle parts trading B2B platform "Auto Parts Shop" was officially launched, forming a closed loop of auto parts trading services from search, quote comparison, payment to delivery. In 2015, Baturu received a 50 million RMB Series A financing from capital such as Qifu. In 2016, Baturu received a 100 million RMB Series B financing from capital such as Huachuang and Zhongding.

Hu Zhengwei, Executive Director of Warburg Pincus, said: "The auto parts supply chain is an important upstream link in the entire automotive mobility sector, with a huge but extremely fragmented market. Baturu is the most innovative company we have discovered in the Chinese auto parts supply chain field, and will be an integrator and leader in the auto parts supply chain that cannot be ignored. Baturu's founding team has rich experience and super execution in auto parts, technology, and the Internet. We will also fully utilize Warburg Pincus's experience and resources in the mobility field to support Baturu's development."

As the investor in two consecutive rounds, Zhongding Venture Capital also firmly "bullish" on Baturu. Its partner Zhu Yingchun said that the auto parts supply chain is a large-cap track with international benchmarks. Baturu has connected upstream and downstream, greatly improving transaction efficiency, while combining light and heavy organizational models to achieve compatibility of platform control and model expansion.

 "More importantly, the Baturu team led by Mr. Zeng (Note: Zeng Wan Gui) has repeatedly accomplished things that the industry thought were impossible, demonstrating extremely strong strategic determination and execution."

At the press conference site, relevant responsible persons of Baturu revealed that the platform currently covers more than 60 car brands, 100,000 mainstream models (95% of domestic market models), 200 million parts matching relationships, and 4 million parts types. Through the supply chain system of "virtual inventory + transit warehouse + offline service stores," it has cumulatively served more than 50,000 auto repair shops, continuously bringing users a new auto parts procurement experience that is complete, accurate, fast, and cost-saving. Starting from August 2016, Baturu has successively cooperated with insurance companies such as Da Di, Sunshine, Pacific, Zhonghua, Anxin, Dinghe, etc., for direct parts supply.

Zeng Wan Gui told reporters that next, Baturu will continue to deeply cultivate the three major areas of database, system, and supply chain. At the same time, adhering to the concept of openness and inclusiveness, it will connect with other areas of the automotive aftermarket, such as insurance claims assessment, supply chain finance, auto repair technology, brand and product marketing channels, auto culture, etc., fully unleash the value potential of big data, and provide more services for the industry.

About Warburg Pinc GroupWarburgincus is a leading global growth private equity investment, currently managing over $44 billion in assets and investing in more than 140 companies. Warburg Pinc is an excellent partner for entrepreneurs and management teams, to helping enterprises achieve long-term development. Since entering the Chinese market in 1994, Warburg Pincus has cumulatively invested more $7 billion in nearly 100 leading companies across industries in China. recent years, Warburg Pincus China has continuously increased its investment in the large mobility sector, deeply penetrating multiple sub-sectors, and has invested in companies such as Shenzhou Car Rental, Shenzhou Specialty Car, Youxin Pai, Mobike, NIO, eDaijia, and Dashoche.

About Zhongding Venture Capital

Zhongding Venture Capital was established in 2009 and is a "boutique fund" that combines international vision and local experience. Zhongding's mission is to improve the efficiency of commodity circulation in China, focusing on industrial investment centered on "supply chain capabilities." Investment areas include logistics, supply chain services, brand & retail, and more. For the common mission, Zhongding has gathered top business leaders from Tencent, JD, SF Express, National Development Bank Financial, Guochuang Yuanhe, and China as like-minded investors. Zhongding's investment cases include: Deppon Logistics, Truck Help, Huitong Tianxia, Fuyou Truck, M&G Stationery, Fengchao, Yunji, Yijiu Pi, Baturu, etc. (Xinhua Net · Liao Jia)

(Original link: Full Vehicle Parts Auto Parts E-commerce Baturu Completes $100 Million Series C Financing Led by Warburg Pincus)