Alibaba, DST lead Series D for China's Nice Tuan
Alibaba Group and DST Global have led a $750 million Series D round for Shihuituan, a China-based community group buying platform also known as Nice Tuan.
Other investors include D.E. Shaw, Anatole Investment, Jeneration Capital, Dragoneer Investment, CDH Investments, GGV Capital, Kunlun Capital, Franchise Capital, and Cygnus Equity.
Nice Tuan raised four tranches of Series C funding last year. Joy Capital led the first, worth $88 million, in January and GGV played the same role in a second tranche of $81.4 million four months later. Then CDH took the lead in a third tranche of $80 million in July before Alibaba and Jeneration led the $196 million fourth in December.
Founded in June 2018, the company offers fresh produce through a mini-program on WeChat. Each community has a leader who aggregates demand for products and places orders. Customers pick up items from specified places such as convenience stores. Nice Tuan focuses on lower-tier cities where customers have fewer choices, promising next-day delivery.
The company has operations in 25 provinces and claimed one million community leaders comparing to 200,000 leaders as of last December. Daily orders exceed 15 million units. Further traction came with the acquisition of industry peer Niwoning.com - a portfolio company of GGV and CMBC Capital - in August 2019.
Community group buying has attracted a lot of private equity and venture capital funding last year. Larger rounds include RMB2.5 billion ($360 million) for Shengxian and $200 million for Tongcheng Life, which was incubated by an online travel agency Tongcheng-Elong.
Local internet giants have not been left behind. JD.com, Meituan, Alibaba, Pinduoduo, and Didi Chuxing have all launched community group buying businesses. Wei Cheng, CEO of Didi recently said there was "no upper limit" on its investment in Chengxinyouxuan, a community group buying brand developed in-house.
Cygnus Equity was the exclusive financial advisor for Nice Tuan's latest round.
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