Jack Ma’s YF Capital leads $315m funding round in Chinese industrial ecomm platform

Chinese ecommerce platform ZKH, which offers industrial products, announced it has raised US$315 million in a series E funding round led by YF Capital – a private equity firm co-founded by Jack Ma.

Jack Ma / Photo credit: Alibaba

Entities like state-owned China Structural Reform Fund, CIC Capital, GLP-C&D Equity Investment Fund, and Xiamen C&D Corporation Limited also participated in the round. The fundraise also saw participation from existing investors Eastern Bell Capital, Genesis Capital, Tencent, Tiger Management, Matrix Partners China, Legend Capital, and Cowin Capital.

The latest round brings ZKH’s total capital raised to date to 4.5 billion yuan (US$670.5 million), the company said in a statement.

ZKH provides a business-to-business platform for Chinese companies to procure industrial products like hardware, equipment and lubricant, as well as MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) solutions. It currently works with over 8,000 partners and serves more than 15,000 customers in the manufacturing industry, its website states.

With the capital injection, the company will expand its presence, develop its services and products, as well as build its team.

According to global consultancy firm Bain & Company, the market value of ecommerce dealing in industrial products in China is expected to hit 2.3 trillion yuan (US$342.6 billion) in 2024, up from 700 billion yuan (US$104.3 billion) last year.

Currency converted from Chinese yuan to US dollar: US$1 = 6.71 yuan.