According to jiqizhixin.com, 4Paradigm has closed its Series C funding with an amount of CNY 1 billion. The new round has also made 4Paradigm the only startup with a joint investment of all "five major banks" in China.
Dec 19, 2018 /EqualOcean/ - 4Paradigm, has closed its Series C Financing with a funding amount of CNY 1 billion, making its valuation to around USD 1.2 billion.
Investors of Series C Financing comprises China Reform Capital, TusHoldings, Baoli Capital, Three Gorges Capital, CITIC Bank, Agriculture Bank of China (ABC), Bank of Communications (BoCom), etc., and Sequoia Capital China continued to increase their investments on the company.
New investors of this round are ABC and BoCom, and the original shareholders of 4Paradigm include Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Bank of China (BOC) and China Construction Bank (CCB). These five banks are together called the "China's five major banks". The Series C funding makes 4Paradigm the only startup with a joint investment of all the "five major banks" in China.
4Paradigm's founder & CEO DAI Wenyuan (戴文渊) commented: "4Paradigm business map has expanded from finance to healthcare, government, energy, retail, media and so on. We will continue investing in technology and accelerate our general-purpose AI platform's expands and applications in various industries to provide better services to our customers and partners."
In the article discussing 4Paradigm's future development, we mentioned that going into 2018, investors have been increasingly focusing on the actual earning of an AI company when evaluating the business. In addition to its big goal of “AI for everyone”, 4Paradigm needs to pay more attention to the company’s cash flow. So far, finance is a great industry to drive revenue and the five major banks can offer great help to the company on expanding its finance sector segment.
However, 4Paradigm's deeper involvement in the finance industry can somehow put the company in a dangerous position: if outsourcing to third parties will be restricted by banks, will Paradigm need to dilute more ownership and lose its control on the business to the state-owned banks?
- Author: ZHANG Fan; Write to ZHANG Fan at ZhangFan@EqualOcean.com