Mubadala and 42XFund lead $300m round for China’s JD Industrials
Abu Dhabi’s sovereign investment arm Mubadala Investment Company led a $300 million series B funding round for China’s JD Industrials, alongside global investment manager 42XFund.
“We are pleased to announce that we have closed our investment in JD Industrials, a leading industrial supply chain technology and service provider in China and a subsidiary of JD Group, one of China’s largest online retailers,” Mubadala said on Twitter on Wednesday.
The transaction was concluded through Mubadala’s China investment programme. Other investors in the round include UK-based asset management group M&G, BPEA EQT — the Asia-focused investment platform of global private equity company EQT — and existing shareholder Sequoia China, JD Industrials said.
The proceeds will be “mainly geared towards investing further in infrastructure and technology services, helping JD Industrials to develop more supply chain technology solutions to better serve its enterprise customers”, it said.
Part of JD.com, China’s largest online retailer, JD Industrials seeks to become one of the largest industrial technology providers.
“JD Industrials is at the forefront of JD Group’s wider initiatives to serve the real economy by becoming a global leading industry supply chain technology and service provider,” it said.
The company aims to “improve the entire industrial supply chain by helping to lower costs, increase efficiency and enable greater operational flexibility”. Once the transaction is completed, JD Group will remain the controlling shareholder.
Mubadala, which is at the centre of the UAE’s efforts to diversify its economy, manages more than $284 billion in assets globally.
In recent years, it has stepped up its investment in health care, technology, mobility, clean energy and life sciences as it expands its portfolio.
Earlier this month, Mubadala, private equity company Stone Point Capital and other investors said they were buying a 20 per cent stake in US insurance broker Truist Insurance Holdings for $1.95 billion.
The deal valued the sixth-largest insurance broker in the US and a unit of Truist Financial Corporation at $14.75 billion.
Global technology growth fund 42XFund, which was formed by Abu Dhabi’s artificial intelligence company G42 in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, has a presence in Shanghai, Singapore and Jakarta.
The fund invests at the “intersection of deep technologies and industries of strategic importance to build a better future”, according to its website.