SHANGHAI, June 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- exands, a leading and pioneering Wi-Fi service provider in China, announced its completion of round B+ financing with Shanghai Zhangjiang Torch Venture Capital Co., Ltd (ZTVC) as the investor.
As the first firm to have invented SMS authentication to access Wi-Fi and the first to introduce national roaming Wi-Fi functions in the telecommunications network, exands has served a group of globally renowned brands, including President Coffee, Haagen-Dazs, Buick, Chevrolet, and commercial real estate developers Wanda Group and Charoen Pokphand Group.
"We have been growing very fast over the last two years," said Lu Guoming, founder and CEO of exands, who has over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience in the IT industry. "Revenue has increased more than 11 times from 2013 to 2015, the number of brands that signed national agreements with us has tripled and exands has served 290 million people in China.
"We are very proud that exands is not only the leader but also set up the Wi-Fi service standard for chain stores. When we started working on in-store Wi-Fi, very few restaurants thought they needed it. Right now Wi-Fi has become a must-have service for any physical store in China, from luxury brands to family-run small businesses at street corners."
Commenting on the financing agreement, ZTVC investment director Hao Lu said, "We have seen the great potential of exands given that there are 900+ million mobile internet users in China according to the MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology), and the market is still growing.
"We are impressed by the team's deep understanding of wireless technology, the early advantages of technology development and the impact the team will bring to the industry."
"Spending 15% of revenue on R&D each year surely results in a better user experience," added Lu Guoming. "This new round of fundraising will further speed up the pace of our technological innovation. We will soon release new services to the market to help our customers increase operation efficiency for their thousands of stores in hundreds of cities."
ZTVC brings exands into the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (SFTZ), where a number of government reforms have been designed to create a preferential environment for foreign investment in telecom and IT service.
Before this round, exands received funding from ZTEVC, which is led by the former CTO of ZTE, Hangzhou Evershine Capital, which was founded by ex-Alibaba executives, and Baidu.
About Shanghai Zhangjiang Torch Venture Capital
Shanghai Zhangjiang Torch Venture Capital Co., Ltd is an important scientific and finance platform located in Zhangjiang High-Tech Park in Shanghai. It undertakes responsibilities of supporting and investing in high-tech enterprises.
About exands
exands is a business-to-business wireless service provider that aims to enable interactions and engagement between brands and their consumers. It spearheaded a series of innovative moves in China's fast-growing information technology market. It is committed to providing both enterprises and consumers with simple, reliable and secured intranet and internet service by leveraging wireless technology.
For more information, please visit: www.exands.com/en
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