(Yicai Global) June 2 -- China’s Caihuoxia has raised USD45 million from investors, valuing the marketplace for secondhand computers, consumer electronics, and communications products at USD140 million.

The business-to-business platform’s A round fundraiser was led by Eastern Bell Capital, Sina Tech reported today, citing Caihuoxia’s controlling shareholder Zhuanzhuan. The size of Beijing-based Zhuanzhuan’s stake remains the same.

Set up in 2019, Caihuoxia does not run its own recycling and retail business, but aims to help such platforms and secondhand mobile phone vendors rationalize their operations. Its B2B business surged 31-fold in the first quarter from a year earlier, while turnover last month jumped over 20 percent from April to CNY500 million (USD78.3 million).

China’s market for used 3C products is worth more than CNY400 billion (USD62.7 billion), according to Eastern Bell founding partner Zhu Yingchun, who added that it should be possible to build a nationwide centralized trading platform for used handsets because of their high value and low logistics and delivery costs.

Caihuoxia will use the funds raised to boost investment in capital and human resources, as well as upgrading its algorithmic recommendation system, said Chief Executive Xiang Changfeng, who also is also a co-founder of Zhuanzhuan. 

Zhuanzhuan is backed by Tencent Holdings and 58.Com.

Editor: Tom Litting