Tencent leads $360m round for China fresh produce retailer

Yipin received a RMB240 million Series A from Capital Today in 2018. Tencent led a RMB2 billion Series B last year with support from Capital Today, Eastern Bell, and Meituan-Dianping’s DragonBall Capital.

Launched in 2013 in Hefei, Anhui province’s capital city, Yipin has opened about 900 stores covering 17 cities in China. It operates 24-hour community supermarkets coupled with an online ordering app and WeChat mini-program. Customers pick up ordered items in the store the next day.

"With the further integration of online and offline platforms, fresh produce will explode with greater potential. Yipin has become the mainstream purchase channel for fresh consumers,” says Tencent in a statement.

Jianfei Jiang, founder of the business told iResearch he believes this year is the best time to expand fresh produce business. He has increased the new-store opening target for 2020 from 650 to 800.

Fresh produce is among the hottest investment themes in China following the COVID 19 outbreak. In recent months, online grocer Miss Fresh has raised $495 million in what ws said to be the largest private round to date in the country's fresh produce space. It was led by CICC Capital.

Meanwhile, Shihuituan, a community group buying platform leveraging WeChat’s mini-program, has announced three funding rounds this year of about $80 million for each. These were led by CDH Investments, GGV Capital, and Joy Capital, respectively. Last week, GenBridge Capital led a $60 million Series C for Guoquan, a hot pot ingredients supplier.

Among its competitors, Yipin’s business model is most similar to that of Benlai Group, which raised a $200 million round last year led by Mingde Holding. Benlai operates community stores supported by online ordering.

Huafeng Yu, founder of Benlai told AVCJ last year that without brick-and-mortar stores as a support, community group buying could only be a temporary model. He also believes that community stores are more competitive than large supermarkets.

"A huge change is happening. It's becoming more and more unrealistic to go shopping three to five kilometers away when preparing dinner after work. Sales at many supermarkets are declining, and some foreign companies are leaving the market – for example, Carrefour and RT-Mart have both sold their China businesses," Yu said. "The trend is clear: for standard commodity items, you purchase online; for fresh produce, you buy it in community stores to save time."

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Consumer
• e-commerce
• Tencent
• China
• Capital Today China Group Company
• Eastern Bell Venture Capital