Legend leads round for Chinese community group buying business
Legend Capital has led a $100 million investment in Tongcheng Life, a social e-commerce business incubated by Hong Kong-listed online travel agency Tongcheng-Elong.
Other participating investors include Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI), Engage Capital, Tongcheng Capital, GF Xinde Investment, ZhenFund, and GSR Ventures.
Launched in the second half of 2018, Tongcheng Life specializes in community group buying. It combines a WeChat marketing channel with a last-mile logistics solution to sell perishables such as fruit and vegetables. This model - which relies on aggregating demand for products among residents in individual neighborhoods - has attracted considerable VC interest. Last month, two of the industry leaders, Shihuituan and Niwonin, completed a merger.
Yu Long, managing partner of BAI, said: “The self pick-up model in communities might become the mainstream consumption method for daily necessities. This is an innovation based on the improvement of supply chain efficiency.”
Tongcheng Life has reached a valuation of RMB3.25 billion ($456 million) and become Tongcheng-Elong's most successful incubation project, according to local media. The parent company was created by Tencent Holdings, Ctrip and Ocean Link through the merger of travel services business Tongcheng Network Technology and hotel and flight booking site operator E-dragon Holding. It listed last year.
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