Chinese Domestic Coffee Brands Lead Online Consumption Trend as Santurnbird Completes B Round Financing

Chinese upscale coffee brand Saturnbird has completed an over 100 million yuan B Round financing this year, led by Sequoia Capital, and followed by its old shareholder Fengrui Capital. Wu Jun, founder of Santurnbird told Chinese media 36Kr that this round of funding will be mainly used for upgrading its supply chain, brand building and new product R&D investment, innovative consumption scenario creation and other aspects.

Founded in 2015, Saturnbird has seen strong growth since landing Tmall in 2018. During 2020’s “6.18” mid-year Shopping Festival, Saturnbird surpassed foreign coffee giants including Nestle and Starbucks to top total sales in the dry drink category chart. The brand has already topped sales in the coffee category during 2019’s Double Eleven Shopping festival.

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Santurnbird first obtained its Pre-A round of financing of 10 million yuan led by Fengrui Capital in November 2018. After that, in November 2019, the company obtained two rounds of financing totaling tens of millions of yuan, led by Tiantu Capital and Fengrui investment, together with Sequoia Capital.

Wu Jun, founder of Santurnbird said that coffee products will tend to be convenient and healthy with the development of mobile Internet and intelligent commerce, which leads to a more fragmented consumption scenario and highly digitalized delivery experience. “We believe that the whole coffee business will become newer and faster, bringing more value and higher efficiency, which will accelerate the connection and integration between related businesses,” Wu said.

Santurnbird’s products feature its unique brewing technology, which is claimed to be able to preserve the original flavour and scent of coffee beans. Its instant coffee powder product using this technology can be dissolved at any temperature in not just water, but milk and oat milk.

Wu said Santurnbird will continue to prioritize online development and content creation over offline distribution in the near future.

The online ready-to-drink and dry beverage market has become an increasingly competitive sphere for domestic Chinese consumption brands as companies flock into the field of freeze-dried instant coffee powder. So far, brands including Yonpu, Tasogare, Secre and FishEye have launched their own freeze-dried powder products, most of which focus on online e-commerce.