Centurium invests $100m in China caterer Meican

The proceeds will go toward product R&D, an overseas expansion, supply chain diversification, and human resources development.

Meican was founded in 2011 as a consumer-focused food-ordering and delivery platform, competing with the likes of Ele.me and Meituan-Dianping. It switched focus to corporate clients – typically medium-to-large enterprises – more than 2,000 employees – with services ranging from staff lunches to business banquets.

The company is now recognized as China’s largest group catering solutions provider with a network of tens of thousands of food suppliers such as restaurant chains and central kitchens. It also operates a digital platform that links corporates, their employees, and merchants.

The plan is to transform and modernize the traditional group catering industry and offers software-as-a-service (SaaS) to other group dining players. These services would encompass digital ordering, integrated payment processing, traffic flow and order prediction, and smart food recommendation for customers.

Operations cover nearly 100 cities across China. Clients include ByteDance, Alibaba Group, SF Express, China CITIC Bank, Pacific Insurance, Peking University People’s Hospital, and China Southwest Aviation University.

“China's group catering industry is going through a profound transformation. We will continue to invest in the diversification and digitalization of our supply chain to further upgrade the overall industry infrastructure and solidify our market-leading position,” said Xiao Zhao, co-founder and CEO of Meican.

“Meican sits in the overlapping area of two industries that have huge markets – corporate services and catering. It has built a unique business model and developed innovative solutions,” said Gary Liu, a managing director at Centurium.

ZhenFund and Unity VC provided angel funding, while KPCB led a Series A in 2012. The following year, North Growth Partners provided a Series B, with TrustBridge Partners participating in a Series B extension in 2014. The company raised a RMB140 million ($20 million) Series C from Meituan-Dianping in 2015. Goldman Sachs Investment Partners participated in a Series D in 2017 that was extended in 2019 by Sodexo Ventures.

The group catering market in China was worth RMB1.5 trillion in 2020, serving 670 million customers and growing at 15% percent a year, according to China Cuisine Association. This is a fragmented space, with the market share of the top 10 players said to be less than 5%. In developed markets, this figure is typically in a range of 60-80%.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Consumer
• Support services
• Expansion
• China
• CMC Capital
• Centurium Capital
• Food
• Logistics