China’s Meituan leads $35m round for online campus store

Banyan Capital, Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI) and Vertex Venture also participated. The new funding will be used to upgrade the company's supply chain, expand product offerings and promote its brand, according to a release from Banyan Capital.

Launched in December last year, Zhai.me operates an online-to-offline (O2O) mobile platform that allows students to order snacks and other consumer goods online and get them delivered on demand. The company partners with consumer brands and wholesalers to sell stocks online, while students can buy products for immediate or scheduled delivery after placing orders.

Zhai.me's services now cover 800 colleges and universities in nearly 70 Chinese cities. It aims to increase its daily orders to one million by the end of this year.

The start-up secured angel funding in March this year. Vertex invested several million dollars in a Series A round one month later. BAI and Chinese student micro-credit site Fenqile invested in an extended Series A round in May.

Earlier this year, Meituan raised $700 million in a funding round from undisclosed investors, valuing the four-year-old company at $7 billion. The group-buying site previously raised several rounds from Sequoia Capital, Alibaba, Walden International, General Atlantic and Northern Light Venture Capital.

Last month, Zhai.me's rival 59store.com raised RMB200 million ($31 million) in a pre-Series B round led by Shenzhen Capital Group. Prior to that, Imcoming.cn, a Chinese mobile e-commerce platform focused on students, completed a RMB110 million Series A round of funding led by Greenwoods Investment and Sharing Capital.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Venture
• Consumer
• Technology
• Expansion
• China
• e-commerce
• Venture
• Technology
• Logistics
• Banyan Capital
• Bertelsmann Asia Investments
• Vertex Management (II)