Miss Fresh Receives $450 Million Investment in New Funding Round

On September 6, Chinese fresh e-commerce start-up Miss Fresh received a $450 million Series D funding from a group of investors, which included Goldman Sachs’ investment branch and Tencent. This follows several Series C+ rounds of funding in 2017 by other investors which surpassed $300 million.

Significantly, this latest round was led by Goldman Sachs Investment Partners and Tencent Holdings. China Renaissance, the Chinese investment bank advising Miss Fresh, announced the investment but declined to state the valuation of the company. Other investors in this Series D funding of Miss Fresh included Tiger Global Management, Sofina, Poly Capital Holdings, Jeneration Capital, and Davis Advisors.

Founded in 2014, Miss Fresh is an online fresh e-commerce company offering online ordering and same-day delivery of fresh produce. Currently operating in 20 cities across China, Miss Fresh operates on a mobile-based platform where consumers can purchase fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, seafood, dairy, and other products such as snacks and drinks.

According to founder and CEO Xu Zheng, Miss Fresh will continue to focus on improving the quality of its global supply chain and promote its own brand products while also expanding to 100 cities and 10,000 warehouses across China, providing access to one-hour fresh delivery services to over 100 million families. Miss Fresh CFO Wang Jun noted that this round of financing was largely thanks for Miss Fresh’s ability to attract investors based on the company’s high growth rates, operational efficiency, and its ‘fresh’ and innovative business model. Wang Jun also stated that the funding was to be used for upstream supply chain development, cold chain logistics infrastructure, and strategic investment in smart retail technology

Tencent’s involvement in yet another fresh e-commerce venture should come as no surprise, as the social media and gaming giant is in fierce competition with its rival Alibaba in China’s fresh food market. Miss Fresh joins JD Fresh, Fruitday, 7 fresh, Walmart/Sam’s Club, Yonghui, Carrefour, and others under the Tencent/JD ‘alliance’ of fresh investments and acquisitions, positioned against Alibaba Group and its own fresh food investments and acquisitions, such as Yiguo, Tmall Fresh, Hema Fresh, RT Market, Auchan, Suning Fresh, and others.

Fresh food e-commerce in China continues to show strong signs of growth, with an iResearch report on China’s fresh food e-commerce market predicting annual growth rates of 49% over the next three years. Online market penetration is also expected to continue to increase, reaching 21.7% by 2020, which will ensure that new users are constantly entering the online fresh food market.