HONG KONG -- China's DEEPEXI has raised $100 million from a group of strategic investors in the financial sector to help it build up an ecosystem that offers one-stop service to help corporate clients go digital.
Its Series B round was jointly led by Industrial Bank's private equity (PE) arm and financial services provider Guotai Junan International.
Other investors included BOCOM International, a financial services subsidiary of China's Bank of Communications; SPDB International, the offshore investment bank owned by SPD Bank; and China-based Recent Capital, which invests in the fields of health care and technology. Lighthouse Capital served as the financial adviser for the deal.
The startup has held three earlier rounds of funding raising at total of $140 million in 2020. In its previous Series A4 round, DEEPEXI snagged $40 million from lead investor SPDB International and an array of other investors, including Hillhouse Capital, IDG Capital, and 5Y Capital.
Founded in 2018 and registered in Beijing, DEEPEXI leverages data intelligence, cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT), and other technologies to develop solutions that enable digital marketing, operations, finance and other aspects of business.
The startup has offered products to over 100 large and medium-size enterprises in retailing, financial services, manufacturing and government affairs, according to its website.
In China, its major clients include women's shoe retailer Belle International, conglomerate Macrolink Group, consumer electronics maker Sichuan Jiuzhou Electric, and local governments in China's Shenzhen Province and the city of Foshan.
"As China has set the development of its digital economy as a national strategy, coupled with external factors like rising demand further accelerated by the pandemic, digital transformation has become more vital," said Zhao Xuan, managing director and head of PE department at Guotai Junan International, in a statement.
"The integration and application of technologies such as big data, cloud computing, AI, and IoT (Internet of Things) will help more enterprises lower the threshold for adopting data-driven operations and enable them to enjoy the growth dividend brought by data intelligence," said Zhao.
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