China’s Didi Kuaidi invests in food delivery player Ele.me

Yuhao Zhang, CEO of Ele.me, confirmed the investment to Yicai.com. He also denied rumours that his company will merge with Chinese online-to-offline (O2O) services platforms Dianping and Meituan.

In the same report, Yicai.com cited anonymous source from Didi Kuaidi that the two parties will cooperate in delivery services, helped by a combination of two-wheel and four-wheel vehicles. The service is currently being tested in Beijing and is expected to launch next month.

Didi Kuaidi's rival Uber has already launched food delivery service under its own brand - UberEat - in the US and Europe.

Ele.me claims to work with more than 300,000 restaurants across 252 cities, serving in excess of 40 million consumers. The company has around 4,000 full-time couriers located in first and second-tier cities and a network of over 200,000 part-time couriers through arrangements with third-party providers.

In August, Ele.me raised $630 million Series F round from a combination of new and existing investors, which reportedly valued the business at more than $3 billion. CITIC Private Equity and domestic retail group Beijing Hualian led the round. CMC Capital, Gopher Asset Management, Sequoia Capital and strategic players Tencent Holdings and JD.com also took part.

The online food ordering platform has raised more than $1 billion since inception. Dianping is among the earlier invsetors.

Last month, Dianping and its competitor Meituan agreed to merge. The transaction valued the combined entity at more than $15 billion. It has subsequently been reported that Ele.me would eventually be integrated into the same platform.

Dianping has expanded its restaurant listings and group-buying business to encompass other leisure-related areas, including a few forays into O2O local services. Meituan started in group-buying and now covers hotel booking, where it faces incumbents Ctrip and Qunar (which recently announced a merger); movie ticket booking; and food delivery, competing with Ele.me, Baidu Delivery and others.

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