Chinese online fresh produce retailer Miss Fresh gets $495m
Chinese online grocer Miss Fresh has raised $495 million in funding - said to be the largest private round ever seen in the country's fresh produce industry.
It was led by CICC Capital with additional contributions from ICBC International, Tencent Holdings, Abu Dhabi Capital Group, Suzhou Changshu Government Industry Fund, Tiger Global Management, and Goldman Sachs.
Miss Fresh was established in 2015 by two former executives at Joyvio Group, an agribusiness unit of Legend Holdings, that runs a similar online supermarket for agricultural products.
The company operates under a front-end warehouse model, guaranteeing delivery within 30 minutes - from a selection of over 3,000 products - in 16 cities. It claims to have achieved positive operating cash flow nationwide for six consecutive months. The new capital will be invested in supply chain technology that takes coverage up to the production level. Miss Fresh already has China's largest self-built cold chain logistics system for instant delivery.
“In the next five years, online fresh-produce supermarkets will enter a stage of rapid growth. User coverage will spread from the early-adoption population to the mainstream population. It will go from being a supplementary channel to the main purchase channel,” said Zheng Xu, the company's founder and CEO.
Miss Fresh secured $5 million in angel funding from GX Capital on inception in 2014 and then received a Series A round of undisclosed size from Tencent and GX. Between 2015 and 2016, it raised RMB430 million ($63 million) in Series B funding across two tranches. This was followed by a $330 million Series C 2017 that included contributions from Tiger Global, Genesis Capital, Lenovo Capital, and Zheshang Venture Capital.
Then in 2018, Miss Fresh raised a $450 million round co-led by Tencent, Goldman, Jeneration Capital, and US-based Davis Selected Advisers.
Competitors in the space include Hema Fresh, a 24-hour online and offline fresh food delivery service backed by Alibaba. JD.com has also rolled out its own online fresh food channel as well as opening the 7Fresh supermarket in Beijing.
Among the newcomers in the space are Shihuituan, a community group buying platform also known as Nice Tuan. Earlier this year, it raised $81.4 million in an extended Series C round led by GGV Capital. This came five months after Joy Capital led a $88 million investment.
China Renaissance served as the exclusive financial advisor for Miss Fresh's latest round.
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