Shenzhen-based Casstime, an industrial internet company that serves the automotive aftermarket, has closed its Series C1 round, bagging USD 80 million from investors led by Sequoia Capital China and Source Code Capital, Chinese media outlet iYiou reported on Thursday.
Jiang Yongxing, founder and CEO of Casstime, said that the new funds will be utilised for R&D, market expansion, and to expand the product lineup on its B2B e-commerce platform.
Casstime’s business includes a trading platform hosting various auto spare parts, a SaaS management system for workshops, supply chain finance, and a logistics service, according to the company’s website.
Casstime stated it has garnered more than 1,000 auto parts suppliers on its trading platform and has acquired more than 50,000 auto maintenance companies as its clients, located in more than 325 cities in China, as of end July. It added that auto parts from its platform have been used to maintain and repair more than 1 million cars each month on average.
Deloitte said in a September report on China’s automotive aftermarket that the country was home to 240 million cars in 2018. It also said that China will surpass the United States as the country hosting the largest number of cars worldwide in 2020, citing data from the Auto Aftermarket Industry Association.
The auditing and consulting firm predicted that China’s auto aftermarket, including auto financing, auto insurance, maintenance, auto leasing, and second-hand auto trading, will have high growth potential.
China’s auto maintenance market has grown by a compound annualized growth rate of 13% in the past three years to reach a size of RMB 930 billion (USD 132 billion), with no dominant players, according to Deloitte.
The e-commerce penetration rate in the maintenance market was only 5% in 2018 and may reach 17% by 2025, Deloitte predicted.