Warburg Pincus Invests US$100 Million in Chinese B2B e-Commerce Platform Yijiupi

Beijing, March 18, 2019 –Yijiupi, China’s leading mobile on-demand B2B platform in FMCG sector, has completed a Series D+ financing from an affiliate of Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm focused on growth investing. The fund raised will be used on Yijiupi’s national network expansion, new retail initiatives and R&D.

Founded in 2014, Yijiupi is committed to digitizing and improving supply chain efficiency for China’s FMCG (Fast-moving consumer goods) market. Within five years, it has evolved into a leading B2B mobile digitized platform that covers all major FMCG product categories with national network across the industry value chain. In 2018, Yijiupi achieved a gross merchandise value of about US$2.0 billion, and has self-operated supply chain and fulfillment capabilities in more than 130 cities in China, one of the largest distribution networks in China’s FMCG B2B market. The Company has developed a broad suite of digitized solutions, including a mobile-based e-commerce platform, supply chain and logistics platform, retail chain management platform, and supply chain financing solutions etc.

Mr. Chaocheng Wang, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Yijiupi said, “Yijiupi will make significant breakthroughs across industry value chain in 2019. While we continue to grow our self-operated gross merchandise value at triple digit, our financing, cloud warehousing, chain stores and C2M businesses will create new growth and profit opportunities, enabled by our strong technology and supply chain capabilities.”

Mr. Jericho Zhang, Managing Director of Warburg Pincus commented, “We are very optimistic about the development of Industrial Internet in China. Despite the distinct features of different industry verticals and market participants, digitization has significantly improved the efficiency of supply chain. Warburg Pincus will continue to identify and support leading Industrial Internet platforms to consolidate various large but fragmented sectors.”

“We are very impressed by the sober-minded and visionary core management team, who have built up strong competitive moats around the business with solid executions. Yijiupi is not just collecting and sharing information for any specific segment, but rather creating value across the industry value chain with digitalized tools and operating excellence. Yijiupi is not only a trading platform, but rather an empowerment platform for all business partners,” he added.

Yijiupi has built an infrastructure of mobile and digital solutions, and an extensive national distribution and fulfillment network. On top of these, leveraging the integration of supply chain and financing resources, it has successfully identified business models that create values for all market participants, from brands, distributors, retailers to consumers.

Jericho Zhang emphasized that there are great potentials in China’s FMCG industry for further consolidation, as the $0.6 trillion market is still highly fragmented, dominated by traditional channels. “While we’ve already seen multiple B2B companies worth tens of billions of US dollars in the US where the FMCG market is highly modernized, we expect large-scale B2B leaders to emerge in China, where the channels are still dominated by more than 6 million small retailers,” he explained.

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Warburg Pincus LLC is a leading global private equity firm focused on growth investing. The firm has more than $43 billion in private equity assets under management. The firm’s active portfolio of more than 180 companies is highly diversified by stage, sector and geography. Warburg Pincus is an experienced partner to management teams seeking to build durable companies with sustainable value. Founded in 1966, Warburg Pincus has raised 17 private equity funds, which have invested more than $73 billion in over 855 companies in more than 40 countries.

Since entering the Chinese market in 1994, Warburg Pincus has invested over $12 billion in over 100 companies in China. The firm has a strong record in investing and supporting the growth of many leading consumer, technology, retail and B2B companies such as China Kidswant, Gome, Intime, Leyou, New Carzone, Souche and Batulu. For more information on Warburg Pincus, please visit www.warburgpincus.com.

Cargomatic Closes $35 Million Series B Financing Round Led by Warburg Pincus

Investment will fuel expansion efforts both in the U.S. and internationally

Long Beach, Calif – Cargomatic, Inc. (“Cargomatic”), a leading technology platform that connects shippers and carriers, today announced the closing of a $35 million Series B financing round. The financing is led by funds affiliated with Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm focused on growth investing, along with Canaan, Genesee & Wyoming, Xplorer Capital and Muse Family Enterprises. The investment will support Cargomatic’s forthcoming geographic expansion efforts and plans to hire key employees to support its next phase of growth.

Founded in 2013 and based in Long Beach, California, Cargomatic is a highly automated, touchless technology-enabled transportation provider focusing on the fragmented short-haul and drayage trucking markets. Through its mobile application, Cargomatic connects shippers, receivers and carriers and eliminates the volume of calls, emails and faxes traditionally needed to book a transaction. Cargomatic enables customers to track information in real-time, quickly access or list untapped trucking capacity within the market, improve service levels – including pick up time and delivery rates – and effectively manage outsourced vendors within one platform.

“Local trucking is a $70 billion industry in the U.S., and small-fleet trucking companies handle 80 percent of deliveries in metropolitan markets. Cargomatic is revolutionizing the current trucking transportation logistics space by addressing its largest pain points through a unique combination of deep mobile and enterprise technology and the robust logistics support necessary for managing the intricacies of shorthaul trucking,” said Richard Gerstein, CEO of Cargomatic. “We are pleased to have the support of Warburg Pincus, whose extensive experience in logistics and technology-based logistics businesses will be pivotal as we embark on Cargomatic’s next chapter, and work to bring our solutions to more customers around the world.”

“Now more than ever, the use of technology is critical for the logistics industry to increase efficiency, reduce costs and create more coordinated, streamlined operations,” said Alex Berzofsky and Vishnu Menon, Managing Directors, Warburg Pincus. “Cargomatic’s unique and effective technology platform is a key differentiator, as it standardizes driver onboarding and is quickly deployable into new markets.

Parag Gupta, Vice President, Warburg Pincus, added, “We see meaningful opportunity to continue delivering value for customers and expanding the platform to new cities. Rich and the experienced Cargomatic leaders are have a strong focus on culture and team rooted in integrity, and we look forward to partnering with them in this new phase of the business.”

Cargomatic currently operates in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Florida, Seattle, Dallas, Houston and New York, and has thousands of trading partners using its platform, including shippers, manufacturers, retailers and third-party logistics providers.

About Cargomatic

Headquartered in Long Beach, Calif., Cargomatic is a technology-based transportation company and marketplace focused on first and last mile transportation. For more information, visit www.cargomatic.com

About Warburg Pincus

Warburg Pincus LLC is a leading global private equity firm focused on growth investing. The firm has more than $45 billion in private equity assets under management. The firm’s active portfolio of more than 165 companies is highly diversified by stage, sector and geography. Warburg Pincus is an experienced partner to management teams seeking to build durable companies with sustainable value. The firm has been an active investor in logistics businesses with current and former investments including BlueGrace Logistics, MercuryGate, Coyote Logistics, New Breed Logistics, Ecom Express, Rivigo, and ZTO Express. Founded in 1966, Warburg Pincus has raised 17 private equity funds which have invested more than $68 billion in over 825 companies in more than 40 countries. The firm is headquartered in New York with offices in Amsterdam, Beijing, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, Mauritius, San Francisco, São Paulo, Shanghai and Singapore. For more information, please visit www.warburgpincus.com.

Media Contact

Mary Armstrong

Warburg Pincus

+1 212 878-9207

Estonia's largest cable TV operator Starman acquired by East Capital Explorer

Swedish investment group East Capital Explorer has agreed to buy 51 per cent of Estonia's largest pay TV player, Starman, for €24m. At the same time Starman's co-founders increased their shares in the company after investing an additional €5m: Peter Kern-owned OU Com Holding increased its stake to 34.3 per cent (from 20.9 per cent), while Indrek Kuyvallik's OU Polaris Invest increased its stake to 14.7 per cent (from 11.3). The transaction is now subject to approval by the Competition Office. The shares were sold by Starman's former owner, Xalto CDO II BV owned by Bancroft Group.

Straman is Estonia's largest cable TV operator, with about 130,000 cable TV and about 60,0000 broadband subscribers. Since 2006 it has also been providing a pay DTT service, Zoom TV. In 2012 the company made €28m revenues with EBITDA €13m. East Capital Explorer is listed on Stockholm Stock Exchange. The company was established in 2007 and it focuses on Eastern European markets, investing primarily in the financial, utility, and industrial sectors.

According to Starman's 2008 annual report, which was the last report it published while still listed on the Tallinn Stock Exchange, it ended 2008 with 137,000 cable TV and 54,000 Internet subscribers. Since then the operator's TV subscriber base has shrunk, and the number of Internet customers has grown only slowly. Moreover, in spite of investments rolling out digital TV on cable, a considerable part of Starman's cable subscriber still prefer analogue TV.

These rather unimpressive results are primarily due to fierce competition in the Estonian TV and telecommunications markets. Starman competes with the incumbent telco, TeliaSonera-owned Elion, providing telephony, Internet and a growing IPTV service, as well as Viasat's satellite TV platform, its only competitor in rural areas, as well as other cable TV operators, with country's second largest cable TV player, STV.

As the pay TV market in Estonia is close to saturation, the competition is getting even fiercer. After switching off analogue terrestrial TV in 2010, pay TV continued to grow, but during 2012 it increased only about one per cent, exceeding 90 per cent of homes.

Under such circumstances, with the growth in terms of subscribers becoming much more difficult, the pay TV players will be focusing on strengthening their offers,lowering churn and increasing ARPU. Funds from the new investor should help Starman to move all of its subscribers to the digital service and make its offer more competitive. Among the likely developments are the launch of more HD channels (currently 10), extending the VOD offer and adding multiscreen service to its portfolio.

The transaction is another example of the interest that International investment groups are showing in Eastern European cable TV.  Recently Warburg Pincus acquired a minority stake in Poland's sixth largest cable TV player, Inea; in March this year, Mid Europa Partners, owing among others Serbia's largest cable TV service, SBB, and a cable operation in Bosnia (both under the brand Telemach) continued acquisitions in Bosnia by buying a local service called Art-Net. Other investment groups active in the region include: Advanced Broadband, Argus Capital, AXA, BKS Capital Partners, Contaq and EQT.

Bulgaria Top Cable Providers Merge into Blizoo

Bulgaria's top cable providers Eurocom and CableTel, which merged earlier in the year after the acquisition by Swedish investment fund EQT V, have been rebranded as Blizoo.

Sweden-based private equity firm EQT acquired two of Bulgaria's major cable TV and Internet operators in a EUR 210 M deal at the end of October last year and merged them to form the country's biggest cable operator.

Under the deals EQT through its EQT V fund acquired 100% of Eurocom from US private equity firm Warburg Pincus and 70% of privately-owned CableTel.

CableTel's other shareholder Ron Finley remained minority shareholder by rolling over his 30% shareholding in CableTel into the merged company and investing further equity.

“Blizoo has the ambition to turn into Bulgaria's leading digital television operator and the biggest broadband Internet provider,” said Istvan Polony, chief executive of Blizoo.

EQT has a strong track record of fostering growth and value creation in the more than 70 companies that it has invested in over the last 14 years.

EQT has previously developed Swedish cable TV operators StjärnTV and Com Hem into leading local providers of digital TV, broadband and telephony - so called triple play.

Currently, EQT owns a leading German cable TV operator Kabel BW which has recorded significant growth and successfully developed the triple play concept in Germany.

Multikabel changes hands

The German cable operator PrimaCom is to sell off its Dutch subsidiary Multikabel in a EUR515 million deal. Its stake is being acquired by the private equity firm Warburg Pincus. The Dutch operator has around 315,000 TV customers, 130,000 broadband internet subscribers and 35,000 telephony customers on its networks in the north of the country. The deal, which is subject to approval from regulators, is expected to be completed next month.