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IT leasing and corporate SaaS platform “Edianuzu” received USD 60 million Series D funding from former shareholder Source Code capital. Edianzu’s valuation has risen to USD 500 million from USD 200 million after this round of financing. Edianzu completed two rounds of funding this year.
Edianzu has several core services including IT product leasing, enterprise SaaS platform, and PC manufacturing. To date, the company serves more than 20,000 enterprises including Bytedance, Sunshine Insurance Group, Software company YonYou, accounting firm Lixin and other companies. There are more than 300,000 units of IT equipment being leased. Their market share is estimated to reach almost 80%. Headquartered in Beijing, it has sales offices in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan, and Hangzhou. IT leasing service is available all over China and on-site express IT support within 4 hours is available in 10 major cities across the country.
CEO Ji Pengcheng told KrASIA’s parent company 36Kr that it will further accelerate their development in expanding its corporate IT services, sales capabilities, and set up direct sale branches in more cities. It will also further strengthen its service capabilities, coverage, and enable more cities to achieve fast-track IT support services within 4 hours, providing customers with a better user experience.
Investors want stability
Recently, companies are facing difficulties in getting funds in the primary market but Edianzu was looked highly upon among investors. When talking about the new shareholder, Ji recalled in an exclusive interview with 36Kr that the above-mentioned sovereign fund is huge and has been the leading LP of many well-known funds. However, Ji did not disclose the investor upon their request.
Ji believes that investors want stability. He believes that serving corporates provides a steadier user and revenue growth than most consumer-oriented businesses. “Although we may not see explosive growth in the near future, the annual average growth will always grow.”
Even though the Chinese market has not developed the habit of paying for software, more enterprises are now willing to pay for hardware. In the past, enterprises had to spend an average of 10,000 yuan to purchase office equipment which can be rent for just a monthly payment of 300 yuan.
Source Code Capital Chang Kesi also pointed out that enterprises are putting more emphasis on the efficiency of IT services. Edianzu is currently the industry leader and had been constantly improving its service quality and maintaining rapid growth.
Edianzu helps enterprises in reducing their expenses on depreciating assets and its maintenance. In order to better serve enterprises, the company has launched new services such as allowing zero deposit lease, full warranty, new computer brands, on-site fast IT support service within 4 hours. This is to compete with companies such as IBM and HP.
Going public is not their main pursuit, Edianzu wants to be the largest IT service company
An interesting fact is that Edianzu doesn’t have any strategic investors at their current stage of financing. Ji explained that because this niche is relatively new, there are not many strategic investors in this field. Moreover, the advantage is that the company can develop their own ideas and strategies because this niche is still a blue ocean.
Chang mentioned that the current penetration rate is still very low, and there is still huge room for growth in the future. According to DBI Data Services, IT leasing companies account for 62.15% in Europe and 58.74% in the US. In China, IT equipment leasing service has a market penetration of only 4.9%, meaning there is still potential for market growth of 100 billion RMB.
Ji estimated that the equipment lease will increase from the current 300,000 units to 5 million to 10 million units in 5-10 years. His ideal target is 80 million units in 10 years.
Ji has no plans to go public at the moment. “Edianzu actually has the ability to go public right now with its current database. But I don’t think it makes sense because I still hope to build a company,” he said. “No company should put IPO as their priority. My wish for Edianzu is to be the largest IT service company.”
“In the next ten years, we will focus more on serving enterprises and not end-users. Also, we will not provide short-term leasing. We are not worried about competing with manufacturers when we can build a common vision and strategy in the company.”
Established in March 2015, the company has completed six rounds of financing of over RMB 900 million. The recent one took place in March this year, completing USD 32 million Series C financing, with Source Code Capital as lead-investor, and Shun Wei Capital, Matrix Partners China, Hongtai Fund and Koala Fund as co-investor.