China agriculture supply chain player adds $26m to Series B

The backers are HG Capital – a PE firm established in 2012 by former executives from CCB International and KKR – local investment and consulting firm ShengJing Group, and M31 Capital, an investment unit of Giant Group, according to a local media reports republished by the company. The earlier tranche was led by Global Logistic Properties and featured IDG Capital, Matrix Partners China, and Puhua Capital.

Songxiaocai was founded in 2014 by Lingbing Yu, who previously launched a rural e-commerce business on Alibaba Group's Taobao platform. Retailers place orders through an app and produce is sourced from suppliers and delivered to nearby warehouses. Songxiaocai collects information on buyers, sellers, products, pricing, and logistics to eliminate supply chain blind spots and allow closed-loop reporting.

The system is built on transparency: farmers can find out what products are being sold where, while retailers are able to track products all the way to the source. The company is keen on taking digitization into the upstream supply chain, using its data resources to help farmers decide what to grow based on market demand-supply trends.

There are also plans to expand into related verticals such as logistics, warehousing, and supply chain finance.

Songxiaocai received seed funding from John Wu, a co-founder of Alibaba Group, in 2015, and a Series A round worth RMB104 million from IDG, Puhua, and Vision Plus Capital the following year. It subsequently raised RMB85.15 million in an extended Series A round from Yintai Capital, Matrix, and IDG.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Technology
• Consumer
• Agriculture
• Venture