China VC Weekly: Coffee, Chips and Metaverse

In last week’s VC news, prominent Chinese specialty coffee chain Seesaw Coffee bagged new financing via its Series A++ funding round, metaverse proponents Oasis and Bigverse secured fresh funds, and more.

Coffee Brand Seesaw Coffee Closes Series A++ Round of Financing

Seesaw Coffee has completed an A++ round of financing worth several hundred million yuan. This round of financing was led by BA Capital and followed by CoStone Capital and will be used for store expansion and digital construction nationwide.

The achievements brought by the direction adjustment are visible as the sales of creative coffee as its strategic product have increased by more than 50%. According to the company, the brand was able to grow its performance threefold in 2021.

“In 2022, we plan to achieve three times of performance growth on the basis of 2021,” the brand declared.

About Seesaw Coffee

Founded in Shanghai in 2012, Seesaw Coffee was one of the first premium coffee brands in China. In order to help further domestic consumption of coffee beverages, Seesaw Coffee carried out a brand upgrade in 2020 to better integrate the company’s specialties with the unique market demand in China. As a result, the company launched a creative product line they called “maintaining the quality of coffee and emphasizing creative expression.”

Digital Marketing Startup Boolv Raises Nearly $10M in Latest Round

Boolv, an AI video generation software as a service (SaaS) provider, closed two consecutive rounds of funding for nearly $10 million within three months. The two rounds featured investment from Linear Capital, Volcanics Venture, Decent Capital and UpHonest Capital.

Proceeds from these rounds are primarily to be used for talent expansion and product development.

About Boolv

Boolv, which was founded in 2021, focuses on AI, data mining technology and the automatic generation of short marketing videos. It currently serves mainly apparel brands and DTC brands overseas, and plans a gradual expansion to other categories and markets soon. Most of the core members of Boolv hail from Tencent, ByteDance, Tesla and other major companies.

Global E-Commerce SaaS Firm Dianxiaomi Secures $100M in New Funds

E-commerce software as a service (SaaS) firm Dianxiaomi announced its completion of a Series C round of financing totaling $100 million. Investment was jointly led by Tiger Global Management and Huaxing Growth Capital, followed by GGV Capital, CDH VGC and Gaorong Capital.

Up to now, there are more than 1.2 million global merchants served by Dianxiaomi. It has reached cooperation with more than 50 leading e-commerce platforms, more than 800 high-quality logistics providers and more than 60 overseas warehouses around the world. The annual order transaction amount handled by the firm exceeds 300 billion yuan ($47.5 billion). In recent years, its annual business growth has continuously exceeded 100%.

About Dianxiaomi

Since its establishment in 2014, Dianxiaomi has contributed to the construction of a global e-commerce ecosystem, focused on solving the key problems met by digital merchants. It has developed products targeting applications for e-commerce platforms, logistics and sellers, striving to become the world’s largest e-commerce IT services company.

Quantum Computing Startup TuringQ Completes Pre-A+ Round of Financing

TuringQ, a photonic quantum computing company, announced the completion of its third round of Pre-A+ financing. The lead investor in this round was Oriza Holdings while co-investors were well-known Chinese institutions such as Wuxi Binhu State-owned Capital Investment Co., as well as other existing shareholders Legend Capital and Ambrum Capital.

TuringQ has completed three rounds of financing for a total of 500 million yuan ($79 million) in less than a year since its establishment. Funds from the most recent round will be primarily used for constructing an optical quantum computing and intelligence industrialization application ecology, as well as for continually recruiting high-end talent.

About TuringQ

TuringQ was established in February 2021. It focuses on developing optical quantum computer chips that can integrate large-scale photonic circuits based on lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) photonic chips and femtosecond laser direct writing technology.

Chinese NFT Startup Bigverse Rakes in $1.6M

Young Chinese NFT startup Bigverse has announced the completion of a Series A financing round led by CapitalNuts, raising more than 10 million yuan ($1.6 million).

The company launched an NFT arts platform in 2021, rapidly amassing a base of more than 300,000 registered users. The total amount of transactions on the platform has already exceeded 22 million yuan, according to the firm’s official website.

About Bigverse

Founded in 2021, Hangzhou-based Bigverse focuses on metaverse services and NFTs.

Chinese Chipmaker Enkris Secures Several Hundred Million Yuan in Series B+ Financing

Suzhou-based Enkris Semiconductor Inc. announced that it has secured several hundred million yuan in round B+ strategic financing. The lead investor was Goermicro, while co-investors were GL Ventures, Huiyou Capital, Sinovation Ventures, Hechuang Zhiyuan, Gongqing Cheng Junhe, SEE Fund, 37Games and CITIC Securities. Its existing shareholders, Suzhou Oriza Holdings and Shanghai Allin Capital Management Co., Ltd. also joined in the investment round.

The fresh funds are to be allocated primarily for the construction of Enkris’ headquarters and R&D center. Upon completion of the project, Enkris will build an R&D and production base for gallium nitride power electronics, RF electronics and micro-display materials, propelling Enkris to a new stage of development.

About Enkris

Enkris is dedicated to providing high-quality GaN epitaxial materials for microwave RF and power electronics applications. In March 2012, the company was founded in Nanopolis Suzhou at the Suzhou Industrial Park in China’s Jiangsu Province, and in August 2013, Enkris commenced the construction of a GaN epitaxial material production line in Nanopolis Suzhou, with an annual capacity of 20,000 wafers of 150mm GaN epitaxial wafers.

Tencent-Backed WeShine Raises $47.5M in Series B1 and B2 Financing

WeShine, a management product associated with Tencent‘s business communitations platform WeCom, announced that it has raised 300 million yuan ($47.5 million) in Series B1 and B2 financing rounds led by IDG and followed by ZWC Partners and other institutions.

Zhu Jing, the partner of WeShine, pointed out that, “Since it was built in 2015, WeShine has been engaging in the Tencent ecosystem. With the aim of achieving more growth through WeCom, we are committed to providing customers with one-stop services such as SaaS, consulting, training, technological development and hardware based on WeCom. Meanwhile, we will continue to improve our products and services after the financing.”

About WeShine

With a deep understanding of Tencent‘s ecosystem, WeShine positions itself as a manager of WeCom and has built a product foundation and service system in the early stages based on the openness of the platform.

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Chinese Autonomous Driving Startup Haomao Raises $157M From Hillhouse, Meituan

Haomo.AI, a Chinese autonomous driving startup controlled by Great Wall Motor’s Chairman Wei Jianjun, has raised nearly 1 billion yuan ($157 million) in a recent funding round as investors increase bets on smart car technologies.

Haomo will use the funds raised from investors – which include Hillhouse Capital’s early-stage investment unit GL Ventures, Meituan, Qualcomm Ventures and others – to build its talent pool and enhance its R&D capability, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

About Haomo

Started as the intelligent driving department of Great Wall Motor, Haomo is expected to make its Level 2 semi-autonomous driving system available in 34 vehicle models by the end of 2022.

Sports Tech Firm Speediance Bags Tens of Millions of Yuan in Financing

Intelligent fitness brand Speediance announced that it has completed a pre Series A round of financing, with a total amount exceeding tens of millions of yuan. This round was led by FreesFund, followed by WE Capital, while EA Capital Limited acted as the company’s exclusive financial adviser.

Funds secured with this round will be used for the company’s market expansion, team building as well as its products’ mass production. Previously, the company completed angel-round investing in April 2021.

About Speediance

The company, established in 2020, is a fitness brand committed to building intelligent home fitness equipment. It is focused on strength training, with its hardware as the foundation and operational content as the core through the combination mode of “hardware, content, AI personal trainer, community.”  The firm’s products are expected to be launched in the fourth quarter of this year.

Xinxiang Technology Secures Several Hundred Million Yuan in Round A+ Financing

Wuxi Xinxiang Information Technology Co., Ltd., a provider of computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) systems for semiconductor factories, raised several hundred million yuan in Series A+ financing. The lead investor was Bohai Industrial Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd., and co-investors were Guolian Xinchuang, South China Venture Capital and Fangdao Fund. Its existing shareholders Sequoia Capital, Hillhouse Capital and Walden International also joined in the investment round.

About Xinxiang Technology

Xinxiang Technology was established in 2018. It focuses on the intelligent manufacturing of software systems and services for the semiconductor industry, and builds a complete cluster of production management and control software systems under its own intellectual property rights.

Social Metaverse Platform Oasis Receives Tens of Millions of Dollars in Financing

Oasis, an interactive social platform based in China and focused on the metaverse, completed a B round of financing worth tens of millions of dollars. This round was led by 5Y Capital and followed by Vitalbridge and BAI Capital. Echo Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor.

After the completion of this round of financing, Oasis will continue to carry out product upgrades, attract more international talent, and enhance product operations and user service capabilities in different markets, while the virtual economic system designed for creators will have the opportunity to be launched this year.

About Oasis

Established in 2018, Oasis previously gained investment from 5Y Capital, BAI Capital, Atlas Capital, K2VC and Qinghan Fund. According to SensorTower statistics, Oasis gained more than 6 million registered users in Q4 2021, and has become one of the fastest growing metaverse-related social products in the world.