ChargeSPOT has shown “encouraging result in terms of the speed of penetrating different markets and amount of funds we have raised”, says Co-Founder and CEO
Hong Kong-based power bank sharing service ChargeSPOT will be closing its Series C funding round at US$38 million (HK$300 million) this month, the company announced in a statement on June 2.
The company has also been acquired by Tokyo-based Inforich Group. Under a recent restructuring in preparation for a 2022 public listing, ChargeSPOT is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Inforich Group, ChargeSPOT told Jumpstart.
The pre-IPO Series C round comes close on the heels of the startup’s US$35 million (HK$270 million) Series B, which was raised from Goldman Sachs and Japan Post Investment, the statement said.
It added that the capital will be used to drive ChargeSPOT’s scale in existing markets in Southeast Asia, expand to the United States and Europe, and fund its IPO listing in Japan, where it has its biggest presence with 17,000 charging stations.
Most of ChargeSPOT’s main investors are from Japan, a company spokesperson said, and it expects to list a sizable IPO at Tokyo Stock Exchange by the second or third quarter of 2022.
Founded in September 2017, the transnational power bank rental has around 25,000 stations and over 1.8 million users, according to the statement. These are focused in Southeast Asian markets, namely Hong Kong, Thailand, and Taiwan, in addition to Japan.
“We focus a lot on increasing the number of spots, users and rentals, and hence captured over 90% market share and are the number one brand in these markets,” Co-Founder and CEO of ChargeSPOT Davis Chan said in an email exchange.
The statement added that the company has plans to increase the number of its stations by four times the current number, to 100,000 stations across the world.
The startup has a number of partnerships in the Southeast Asia region, including a financial leasing contract with Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing. It also has marketing partnerships with Japanese public relations multinational DENTSU and Hong Kong-based global marketing platform iClick Interactive.
“We are keen in developing a strong and extensive worldwide network for power bank sharing, to enable users to travel around freely not only within the city but anywhere they go,” Chan said. “Going forward we would continue to strengthen our positions in existing markets while also expand beyond Asia to build a global power bank sharing network.”
The company had earlier raised US$10 million (HK$78 million) in Series A financing round in 2018. The funding was raised from Hong Kong-based investment management companies Tridel Capital and Chartwell Capital.
Power bank sharing rentals are one of the latest offshoots of the micro-rental trend within the global sharing economy, and a number of startups offering the rental service have popped in the last year.
Header image by ChargeSPOT
