ByteDance’s Douyin Denies Rumors of Acquiring Missfresh
On August 4, the stock price of Nasdaq-listed retailer Missfresh rose rapidly before the close of trading, posting an increase of more than 160%, amid market rumors that ByteDance’s Douyin is considering an acquisition. Chinese media outlet tech.163 obtained a response from Douyin, which asserted such reports are untrue.
In addition, 21st Century Business Herald reported on August 4 that a former senior executive of Missfresh revealed that “only a few staff members of Missfresh’s general managment office are still staying,” while he himself had just completed formalities to leave the job.
Missfresh announced on July 28 that its delivery time had changed from the original 30-minute speedy delivery to next-day delivery, and the delivery scope was still nationwide. On the evening of the same day, it was reported that the company organized a 20-minute online meeting, saying that “the financing failed to be delivered and the company was dissolved in situ.” Regarding the matter, a spokesperson for Missfresh told domestic media that “it is not dissolution, but temporarily shutting down the speedy delivery business and adjusting the personnel.”
SEE ALSO: Missfresh CEO Xu Zheng Refutes Funding Rumors
Missfresh took the lead in proposing the distributed mini warehouse (DMW) mode, so that consumers within 3 km of its stores can receive the ordered goods within 30 minutes to one hour at most. This makes Missfresh stand out in the grocery delivery field. Since its establishment in 2014, Missfresh has bagged 11 rounds of financing. Except for one round of strategic investment with an undisclosed sum, the total scale of the other 10 rounds of financing has reached 14.047 billion yuan ($2.08 billion), and investors include Qingdao Conson Group, Sunshine Venture Capital, Tencent Investment and Goldman Sachs.
However, the company has never been profitable. According to the financial report, in the third quarter of 2021, the loss of Missfresh was 974 million yuan, and the estimated loss in 2021 exceeded 3.7 billion yuan. At the same time, the losses for three consecutive years from 2018 to 2020 were 2.232 billion yuan, 2.909 billion yuan and 1.649 billion yuan respectively.
