Another super unicorn was born.
Investment World - Wild Consumption Bar learned that the American fresh food e-commerce Weee! completed a US$425 million Series E financing this week. The lead investor SoftBank Vision Fund, and the followers are Greyhound Capital and old shareholders including domestic investment institution XVC, with a post-investment valuation of US$4.1 billion (approximately RMB 26 billion).
Interestingly, Weee! has a strong Chinese imprint on it - the three founders are all students who graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University . WeChat began to be popular in the American Chinese circle in 2015. They were inspired by the domestic social e-commerce tide and founded Weee! and founded the Chinese's own online fresh food supermarket. At first, China's group buying model was not adapted to the environment in the United States. After several transformations, Weee! eventually became the largest minority retail and food e-commerce in North America. The success of
Weee! is not accidental. Now China's consumer Internet is going overseas - Indian version Xiaohongshu , Indian version Meituan , Southeast Asian version Heytea , Naixue, British version Ele.me ... Those model innovation projects that have been verified in China are taking root and sprouting in foreign countries, creating unicorns that we seem familiar with.
3 Three Jiaotong University alumni made a unicorn in the United States
valuation is 26 billion yuan
unicorn Weee! The story starts with three students from Shanghai Jiaotong University.
They are Larry Liu, Xie Zuming and Wang Jiong, who are both students majoring in electronic engineering at Shanghai Jiaotong University. After graduating in the early years, Larry received an offer from Intel , while Xie Zuming went to Fudan to study for a master's degree, and Wang Jiong went to the University of Virginia in the United States to study for a doctorate. After that, they became engineers of Huawei and Philips respectively.
In 2014, WeChat officially went online; in 2015, WeChat swept the American Chinese circle, and domestic group buying WeChat groups emerged at that time, and this trend also spread to the American Chinese circle . Local Chinese people often buy live seafood, mutton, handmade buns, dumplings, etc., which are neglected by the mainstream American market. Larry, who has been working in the e-commerce industry for more than 10 years, saw the hot domestic social e-commerce entrepreneurship and keenly smelled the opportunity.
Larry decided to join forces with his former partners Xie Zuming and Wang Jiong again. In 2015, Weee! was established. early, Weee! We adopt the Chinese group buying model to discover the influential local group leaders, and Weee! To a certain extent, he played the role of a supplier, delivered the source of goods contacted to the group leader's home, and then asked members to pick up the goods at the group leader's home, with the delivery time being T+N.
But the problem soon came: in the Bay Area where the user's address is too scattered, the freight costs are high, and the logistics costs are also high, it is almost impossible to deliver fresh vegetables and restaurant dishes the next day. In 2017, Weee! began to convert into a self-operated fresh food e-commerce model, with big warehouse supply and part-time drivers cooperating with delivery. The fastest delivery time is T+1, and a supply chain, logistics and warehousing system has been rebuilt.
Since its establishment, Weee! has completed 3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 In June 2015, Weee! completed a angel round of financing of US$1.5 million, with investors including Zhonglin Capital, etc. In August of the following year, Weee! completed a 7.6 million Series A round of financing, with institutions behind it including Goodwater Capital, Fengyuan Capital, etc.
In March 2019, Weee! completed a round A+ financing of tens of millions of US dollars, with Goodwater Capital, iFly, vc, Weiguang Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, etc.; at the end of March 2020, Weee! announced that it had completed consecutive rounds of nearly US$50 million in financing for the B and B+ rounds. This round of financing was led by famous investment institutions XVC and VMG, followed by Goodwater, Lightspeed Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank, and iFly continued to support it. Five months later, Weee! announced the completion of the C round of financing, led by the famous investment institution DST Global.
March 2021, Weee! Another US$300 million Series D financing was completed. This round of financing was led by old shareholder DST Global, followed by new investors Blackstone Growth, Tiger Global and Arena Holdings, and XVC continued to follow-up. It is worth noting that Weee is now! The financing amount is as high as US$2.8 billion. Now, after completing the latest round of financing, Weee! The valuation has reached RMB 26 billion.
"Fresh grocery e-commerce is a huge track in the mainstream global markets" , XVC partner Hu Boyu once sighed so much. Unlike China's fresh food e-commerce becoming more mature and perfect, SoftBank managing partner Lydia Jett said: "The current supply of minority retail and food markets in the United States is seriously insufficient."
Under the epidemic, the American people's first online shopping
Weee! The rise is a microcosm of the outbreak of fresh food e-commerce in the United States. You may not know that the online shopping of fresh food that we are used to is still a new thing overseas.
In mid-November 2021, GrubMarket, a fresh food e-commerce delivery platform in the United States, completed a US$200 million E-round financing with a valuation of more than US$1.2 billion, becoming a new unicorn. Leading the investment by BlackRock, a total of 14 institutions including Gaingels, Pegasus Tech Ventures, and Japan Post Capital participated in this round of financing. Before this, GrubMarket also had Chinese investors such as GGV Jiyuan Capital , SAIC Group , Fosun Group , angel investor , and angel investor Wang Gang.
GrubMarket was founded in 2014. Xu Minyi, the founder of , is a Chinese . He graduated from Xiamen University biochemistry and computer science. After graduating from , he went to study at Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and obtained a master's degree in computer . He has worked in Silicon Valley for many years, including Oracle, eBay and other well-known Silicon Valley. GrubMarket adopts the direct farm procurement model and is committed to digital transformation of the US food supply chain industry . By the end of 2021, GrubMarket's annual sales have exceeded the $1 billion mark. Chen Jie, managing partner of Celtic Asia, the investor of
GrubMarket, once said that when looking for targets, he pays special attention to Chinese and Chinese model overseas projects, and can often find investment targets with strong growth momentum. In addition to GrubMarket, they also invested in North American central kitchen and delivery platform salt language, North American version of "delicious no need to wait" Snappy, etc.
In the United States, fresh food e-commerce is a new business. According to Statista data, the US fresh food e-commerce market grew from US$7 billion in 2015 to US$318 billion in in 2020, and the market share also increased from about 3% to 10%. It is expected that there will be greater room for growth in the future.
In the past few years, domestic fresh food platforms have fought cruelly, and unicorns have spent a lot of money to subsidize , completing user education. But in the United States, it was not until the outbreak of the North American epidemic in 2020 that many American residents tried to buy groceries online for the first time, which caused the total sales of fresh food e-commerce in the United States to experience an increase of about 54% that year.
At the same time, Amazon's Amazon fresh food, and Walmart fresh food supermarkets, have made great efforts, and have won the first place with their mature supply chain system, rich promotion resources and strong funds, becoming the Chinese version of Meituan Youxuan and Duoduo Maicai.
However, can this track that has been popular with the epidemic continue? We have turned our attention back to China. Fresh food platforms are closed down, while the stock prices of Meituan Youxian and Dingdong Maicai , which have successfully IPOed, are bleak. As Wang Xiaosong, vice president of , JD.com, and president of JD.com's fresh food business unit, once admitted that the hardships of starting a fresh food business. This business is undoubtedly even harder in the United States, where logistics and payment channels are relatively scarce.
China's consumer Internet outsourcing tide, here
is being born in batches of unicorn
through Weee! In this case, we see a new trend - China's consumer Internet is making a big move, and unicorns with Chinese genes are emerging.
At the end of 2021, Hillhouse Venture Capital quietly led the investment in a milk tea brand ZERO&, a new tea beverage brand that borrowed from the Chinese model. Shenzhen-born founder Toby decided to open a milk tea shop for his wife because of his poor experience of buying milk tea for his wife many times in the United States. Last summer, Toby opened its first store, ZERO&, at the Stanford Mall. A long queue was lined up at the door just two weeks after opening the store, known as the "Overseas version of Heytea".
ZERO&The first round of financing is as high as 10 million US dollars. In addition to Hillhouse Venture Capital, investors also include well-known institutions such as Northern Light Venture Capital, IDG Capital, Hony Venture Capital, IMO, Dexun Investment, Uphonest, and the University of California Berkeley Skydeck Fund. The Internet + tea drink model, which has been verified in China, is entering the US market in combination with local localization attempts, verifying the arrival of another wave.
Northern Light Venture Capital Partner Wu Feng calls this type of model that can grow overseas a "universal" business model. He told the investment community: "Some successful business models in China are that can be moved overseas, such as takeaway, fresh food and other projects that have been successful in China."
He believes that these products have common characteristics, that is, universal value, which has nothing to do with culture and race, but can be developed in another different cultural space. Learning from China's already developed and improved Internet entrepreneurship model and local innovations greatly increase the probability of successful entrepreneurship. This is "Copy from China".
New projects with China's imprint spring up like bamboo shoots after a rain. A leading VC institution in China has set up an investment team, focusing on the "Copy from China" project. This is a golden field belonging to Chinese VCs - after all, after experiencing the era of Chinese model innovation, domestic investors can explore projects earlier and predict the development space and potential risks of the company in advance.
In fact, the "Copy from China" model has been verified in many overseas markets , and many investors from China are surrounded by behind it.
In 2016, the "Indian version of Little Red Book" Trell was born, becoming the first community in India to share its lifestyle in a local language. With the continuous popularity of the Internet in India, Trell's number of users has increased by nearly 5 times in 6 months, of which 80% of users are acquired through natural channels, and the cost of acquiring customers is less than 0.1 yuan. Since its establishment, Trell has obtained more than US$60 million in financing, including , Sequoia Capital, , Fosun Ruizheng Capital and other investors.
In 2017, on the other end of the world, Nottingham, UK launched the "Overseas version of Ele.me" - Panda Takeaway (Hungry Panda). Under the epidemic situation, the number of Chinese users with takeaway genes decreased, while Panda Takeaway's business revenue in various countries increased by to 400%, becoming the backbone of the overseas Chinese food market and winning over US$90 million in financing from many overseas investment institutions.
Two years later, Lin Zi, former employee of Yunji , began an attempt to membership-based social e-commerce in North America, and the "North American version of membership e-commerce" OSCART was established. More than half a year after its establishment, OSCART user retention rate has reached 70%, and the per capita monthly consumption has reached US$400. In the early stage, it obtained a 10 million US dollar angel investment in from Gaorong Capital and Jingwei China .
In 2021, The hottest project in the Indian venture capital circle, Zomato, successfully achieved local IPO. On the day of listing, the closing price of increased by 65% from the issue price, and its market value reached US$13.2 billion.Since its establishment, Zomato has successively received support from Ant Group, Tiger Global Fund , Temasek Temasek , Kora Capital and other capitals. Borrowing the model that China has already run, the influence and wealth of the new generation of Indian entrepreneurs have achieved a rapid leap.
Also in 2021, Southeast Asian super unicorn Grab successfully landed on Nasdaq with a market value of US$34.5 billion, setting the largest SPAC merger transaction ever. Grab has created a super APP exclusive to Southeast Asia. Since its establishment, Grab has received support from dozens of world-renowned investment institutions such as SoftBank, Uber, Didi , Toyota, Tiger Global Fund, GGV Jiyuan Capital, Hillhouse , Coatue, etc. This APP, which integrates "Didi+Meituan+Alipay", has created a Southeast Asian venture capital legend.
Recalling more than 20 years ago, consumer products such as KFC , McDonald's , Coca-Cola , Starbucks and other consumer products entered the Chinese market with advanced consumption concepts; supermarket models such as Walmart and Carrefour were once considered synonymous with "fashionable". Once upon a time, domestic cutting-edge consumption has always followed the footsteps of Europe, America, Japan and South Korea. Nowadays, China's consumer Internet has begun to go abroad in batches. These models that have been verified in China are growing wildly overseas and becoming the next batch of unicorns.
