Beijing Zhiketong Technology, a hotel direct marketing specialist leveraging China’s biggest social network platform WeChat, announced on June 25 that it had raised RMB 110 million in its B round financing. Shunwei Capital, a VC firm cofounded by smartphone Xiaomi founder Jun Lei was the lead investor, and LightSpeed China Partners, IDG Capital and Gobi China joined in.
The proceeds will be used to improve and innovate technical systems.
Tian Cheng, a partner of Shunwei Capital said: “Zhiketong has leveraged its Wechat ecosystem and built a social network-based direct marketing system for merchants who provide local quality lifestyle services. We have had a large number of high star-rated hotels covered, and the team has gained rich experience both for online traffic acquisition and offline operation. We are optimistic of the business opportunities presented by the WeChat ecosystem and will stay focused on it.”
Zhiketong’s CEO Mr. Hua Liu claims that its Wechat account has over 1.1 billion active users on a monthly basis.
Founded in December 2014, Zhiketong has operations across 294 cities in China and established 40-plus regional offices. It has served more than 60% of the five-star hotels in China, among them are hotels of IHG, Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton, Hyatt and Wanda Hotels & Resorts.
Zhiketong claims that it has achieved a 20% penetration rate in Wechat direct marketing.
Zhiketong has developed 10,000 functions that support multiple PMS and CRS systems and adopted security management standards such as ISO27001.
Zhiketong has secured nearly RMB 100 million in total from IDG Capital and LightSpeed China Partners in 2017. In 2015, the company raised RMB 1 million from eLong in an angel round in February, and closed its Series A funding led by Gobi China in July. (Translated by Elena)
