The company in Suzhou, with a valuation of over 18.5 billion, is going to IPO.

Li Shufu, a Zhejiang businessman in his sixties, is still busy building and listing companies.

Recently, Caocao Mobility, with a post-investment valuation of over 18.5 billion yuan, applied for a listing in Hong Kong. At the same time, Geely-backed Jidu Auto and its estimated valuation of about 90 billion yuan are also on the path to a U.S. listing. Not long ago, the largest Chinese concept stock IPO in recent years, Lotus, successfully landed on the Nasdaq.

In addition to these three star companies, there is a long list of IPOs behind him: Geely Auto, Volvo Cars, Qianjiang Motorcycles, Polestar, Yikatong, Hanma Technology, and Lifan Technology.

Based on the real economy and leveraging the power of capital, Li Shufu, Chairman of Geely Holding Group, has spent decades working hard and has finally grown from a cowherd to the helmsman of an "automotive empire."

Backed by Geely, a star company emerges in Suzhou

When the battle of ride-hailing disrupted the transportation industry, Li Shufu took the opportunity to enter the market decisively.

In May 2015, Caocao Mobility's predecessor, "Caocao Zhuanche," was established in Hangzhou. In January of the following year, "Caocao Zhuanche" appeared in the public eye, with 100 Geely Emgrand EV pure electric vehicles kicking off public testing.

In Li Shufu's view, Geely Holding Group hopes to use the "Caocao Zhuanche" platform as a starting point, combine in-vehicle artificial intelligence, optimize the intelligent network space, accelerate transformation, and realize the transition from an automobile manufacturer to a transportation service provider and information content provider.

This also means that as a strategic investment business for the group's layout of the "new energy vehicle sharing ecosystem," the company is also a key deployment for Geely Holding Group's transformation from an "automobile manufacturer" to a "mobile travel service provider."

Instead of following the traditional C2C model like Didi, Caocao Mobility chose the "new energy vehicles + public fleet operation + certified drivers" B2C model, placing more emphasis on safety and service, and investing more funds in vehicles, drivers, and management systems.

The heavy asset operation model led to considerable skepticism from the outside during the company's early development. Fortunately, Caocao Mobility, which withstood various pressures, soon saw a turning point.

Starting in July 2016, with the introduction of relevant policies, the importance of safety and compliance for ride-hailing services continued to increase. Caocao Mobility, with standardized and regulated service advantages, launched corporate travel services that same year, and the following year obtained the first license for a domestic new energy vehicle shared ride-hailing service platform.

By its third anniversary, the company had gained considerable popularity, not only launching in 24 cities such as Hangzhou, Xiamen, and Chengdu, but also deploying 23,000 special vehicles and increasing its registered user base from zero to 16 million, with a daily demand reaching 400,000 orders.

By February 2019, the "Caocao Zhuanche" brand and service were fully upgraded to "Caocao Mobility." In September of the same year, the company added nine new cities to its operations, initially attempting a new nationwide inter-regional linkage model. At the same time, its innovative business "Caocao Shunfengche" also began trial operations.

To provide better travel services, Caocao Mobility introduced and operated intelligent pure electric vehicles with charging and battery swapping capabilities—the Maple 80V and Caocao 60. With the support of Geely Holding Group, these two custom vehicles can complete battery swaps within 60 seconds at 258 swapping stations in 26 cities in China, helping drivers increase their income.

In its continuous development, the company chose to establish its national headquarters in Suzhou, a city that has high hopes for itself (note: Suzhou's annual output value of the automotive manufacturing industry exceeded 300 billion yuan in 2023), and ultimately grew into a star ride-hailing platform.

Nearly 20 million monthly active users, annual revenue exceeding 10.6 billion yuan

By connecting drivers and passengers, Caocao Mobility has built a travel ecosystem.

According to Caocao Mobility, the company had an average of 19.2 million monthly active users and 447 million orders in 2023, with an average of 297,000 active drivers and a total of 733,000 active vehicles on the platform that same year.

These vehicles include the company's custom vehicles. Frost & Sullivan bluntly stated that by the end of 2023, Caocao Mobility had the largest fleet of custom vehicles in 24 cities nationwide, with approximately 31,000 vehicles, ranking first among its peers.

In addition to providing ride-hailing services, the company also continuously increased its income by providing car rental services to capacity partners, selling cars to capacity partners, independent fleet operators, and individual drivers.

According to the prospectus, the company's revenue reached 7.153 billion yuan, 7.631 billion yuan, and 10.668 billion yuan in 2021, 2022, and 2023, respectively. The travel services contributed over 96% of the revenue.

According to Frost & Sullivan's data, based on the platform's gross transaction value (GTV), the company ranked among the top three ride-hailing platforms in China during the reporting period, with a GTV of 12.2 billion yuan in 2023.

However, due to factors such as research and development and marketing, Caocao Mobility is still in a loss-making state, with net losses of 3.007 billion yuan, 2.007 billion yuan, and 1.981 billion yuan during the reporting period.

Driven by the Caocao Brain powered by artificial intelligence, the company can effectively allocate user subsidies and intelligently match drivers and users. Coupled with the introduction of custom vehicles and a comprehensive vehicle service solution to optimize vehicle costs, the company's gross profit margin increased from -24.4% in 2021 to 5.8% in 2023, further strengthening its profitability.

Looking at the development trend, the position of shared travel with cost advantages in the travel market will be further enhanced. Frost & Sullivan predicts that the size of China's shared travel service market will grow from 282.1 billion yuan in 2023 to 751.3 billion yuan in 2028.

In this vast market, players such as Didi Chuxing, Gaode Taxi, Meituan Dache, Dida Chuxing, Xiangdao Chuxing, T3 Chuxing, and Ruqi Chuxing have already entered the game. For Caocao Chuxing, in order to further expand its scale, it faces considerable competitive pressure.

With 8 listed companies under his belt, Li Shufu is about to reap another star IPO.

In terms of capital operation, Li Shufu can be said to be quite adept.

More than two years after its establishment, Caocao Chuxing, with a pre-investment valuation of about 9.642 billion yuan, received 100 million US dollars from Sichuan Fund, completing its first round of financing. This transaction allowed Sichuan Fund to obtain about 4.3% of the equity, and also raised Caocao Chuxing's post-investment valuation to over 16 billion yuan.

Not long after, the company completed a 350 million yuan Series A1 round of financing, with investors including Tianxiang Silicon Valley, Longqi Investment, and Zhejiang Merchants Venture Capital. By August 2021, the company completed its final round of financing before going public, receiving 1.8 billion yuan from Suzhou Xiangcheng Fund under Suzhou Xiangcheng Jinkong Group, Agricultural Bank of China, and Dongwu Securities Investment, raising its post-investment valuation to over 18.5 billion yuan.

"The focus of investment is to choose the right track. Travel is a rigid demand, and selecting the leading companies in the internet travel industry is the preferred target at this time," said Lu Zhidong, the former chairman of Suzhou Xiangcheng Jinkong Group, revealing his investment strategy. He also expressed confidence in the good interaction foundation between Caocao Chuxing and Geely's ecosystem, as well as the operational and management capabilities of Caocao Chuxing's management team.

In order to further expand and strengthen Caocao Chuxing, Li Shufu, who holds about 83.9% of the shares, also had his subsidiary Yizhen Auto transfer all the equity of "Limo Chuxing" to the other party for 1 yuan a month before its application for listing.

It is worth mentioning that this Zhejiang businessman in his sixties has already reaped the benefits of 8 listed companies.

This string of IPOs includes Geely Automobile, Volvo Automobile, Qianjiang Motorcycle, Polestar, Yikatong, Hanma Technology, Lifan Technology, and the recently listed and the largest Chinese concept stock IPO in recent years, Lotus - with a closing market value of about 69 billion yuan on the first day of listing.

In addition to Caocao Chuxing, he also has a super unicorn that is applying for listing in the United States - Jike. Before going public, the company has accumulated 1.25 billion US dollars from investors such as Intel Capital, CATL, Bilibili, Hongshang Group, Boyu Capital, CATL, and Yuexiu Industrial Fund, with a valuation reaching about 90 billion yuan.

This also means that Li Shufu's 9th and 10th IPOs are already on the way.