Chinese social commerce platform Beidian raised RMB 860 million (USD 126 million) as it looks to capitalize on the growing trend of social shopping, 36Kr reports.
Investors in the round included heavyweights such as Hillhouse Capital, Xiang He Capital, Sequoia Capital, Sinovation Ventures, IDG Capital, and Capital Today.
Founded in August 2017 by maternal and child care shopping conglomerate Beibei Group, Beidian lets users buy, share, and sell products across a variety of product categories, though it focuses mainly on mother and infant goods — its parent company’s specialty — as well as home, food, clothing, and beauty products.
Beibei Group’s flagship brand Beibei comprises an e-commerce platform and offline retail stores selling products from established brands. The main difference between Beibei and Beidian is the latter’s focus on social commerce.
Anyone can open a shop on Beidian to sell and share products, and receive commissions from sales. And similar to social commerce platform Yunji, Beidian also connects these sellers directly with product suppliers and aids sellers with their marketing and distribution efforts.
According to company data, Beidian has surpassed 50 million registered users, including 10 million monthly active users, and processes over 100 million purchases per business quarter. Market researcher QuestMobile estimates that Beidian’s monthly users in March increased by nearly 550% year-on-year to 13.3 million. A large segment of these are housewives.
The investment comes as China’s government aims to increase birth rates to ward off potential demographic challenges, including an aging population and a shrinking labor force.
36Kr is KrASIA’s parent company.
Editor: Nadine Freischlad