E-commerce Grocery Startup MissFresh Completes New Round of Financing
According to 36Kr, Chinese E-commerce Grocery Startup MissFresh has completed a new round of financing at a pre-investment valuation of more than $3 billion. 36kr cited people familiar with the matter that MissFresh has multiple partners in this round of financing, including CICC Fund. MissFresh has not yet commented on the issue.
MissFresh has already raised eight rounds of financing, with a total amount of nearly $900 million. Its previous investors include Goldman Sachs China, Tencent and Tiger Fund, among others.
MissFresh has been reported to raise funds at a valuation of $2 billion to $3 billion since last year. In December, MissFresh also received 5 billion yuan in syndicated credit and special fund support from Changshu Municipal Government.
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E-commerce grocery has been experiencing rapid growth as the COVID-19 lockdown keep people indoors. Wang Jun, CFO of MissFresh, said in an interview with 36Kr that the epidemic has accelerated the penetration rate of e-commerce grocery for two years. Usually referred to as a rare “blue ocean” in China’s business world, MissFresh is competing with other major players including Alibaba backed Hema, Meituan Dianping backed Meituan Grocery and Ding Dong Grocery.
“Retail is a large, long value chain business with low gross margins,” Xu Zheng, CEO of MissFresh said. “At present, some enterprises in the e-commerce grocery industry are facing operational difficulties. In the long term, it is whether they stick to refined operation strategies, reduce costs and increase efficiency in every segment of the whole chain that matters.”