Black Lake Technologies, a Chinese Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startup that develops data-driven collaboration solutions for the manufacturing industry, has raised nearly 500 million yuan ($77.1 million) in a Series C round of financing led by Singapore state investor Temasek.
All of Black Lake’s existing shareholders, including China Renaissance’s Huaxing Growth Capital, Lightspeed China Partners, GSR Ventures, BAI Capital, GGV Capital, and ZhenFund, participated in the round.
Chinese investment bank Taihecap served as the exclusive financial advisor for the deal.
Founded in 2016, Black Lake specialises in the development of a one-stop, data-driven collaboration platform for factory workers to log their daily tasks and managers to oversee the plant floor.
Its solutions and products digitise data generated in all stages of production, covering client orders, material procurement, quality compliance, warehouse management, logistics, shipment, and beyond. Based on these data, the software then produces reports to help factory managers enhance efficiency, as well as increase output and income.
Since the introduction of its SaaS product in October 2018, Black Lake has served nearly 2,000 medium- and large-sized manufacturers and suppliers across Greater China and Southeast Asia, such as Tesla, Audi, Belgium-based beverages maker AB InBev, L’Oréal, smartphone brand Xiaomi, Chinese oil & gas enterprise Sinopec, and Chinese state-owned conglomerate China Resources’ pharmaceutical group.
It claims to have reached 500,000 production workers across nearly 20 segments to date, according to its website.
In a statement, Black Lake said that it has simplified user experience to make it “as easy as building Lego blocks.” Factory workers and managers can master the usage of its software within one week, and fully deploy it for daily use in around four to six weeks.
Since the founding team wrote its first line of code in a factory in eastern China’s Suzhou City, Black Lake has come a long way to become “a prior choice for Chinese factories taking on their digitalisation endeavour,” said Black Lake’s founder and CEO Zhou Yuxiang.
With the new financing, Black Lake will further strengthen its technologies and innovations with an aim to “accelerate the digital transformation for manufacturing in China and the Asia Pacific region,” said Zhou.
By far, Shanghai-based Black Lake has gathered approximately 800 million yuan ($123.8 million) from five investments. Prior to the latest round, Black Lake had closed a 150 million yuan Series B round in 2019. The startup raised 50 million yuan in a Series A round in 2018, after the completion of its Series Pre-A round at “tens of millions of yuan” in 2017. In its initial round, the firm had secured millions of yuan in an angel round in 2016.
