Chinese Internet company Meituan-Dianping said on July 18 it has raised an undisclosed amount from China Resources (CR) Enterprise Alliance Fund (“华润创业联和基金”) in the latest round of funding. The company raised over USD 3.3 billion in a funding round led by Tencent this January.
After the investment, Meituan-Dianping and CR will explore ways to develop a new business model of “Internet+retailing” on the takeaway platform. The tens of thousands of retail brands under CR, including CR Vanguard, Suguo.com, Tesco, OLE, VanGo convenience stores, Pacific Coffee and CR Care, will be featured on Meituan-Dianping's online takeaway platforms.
Meituan-Dianping currently has nearly 600 million users and 4.32 million partnering merchants across China. As of June 30, 2016, Meituan-Dianping's online platforms have accumulated 20 million pieces of information of points of interest (POI). In June, the platform’s daily order volume peaked at 11.5 million orders.
CR pointed out that the two companies are highly complementary as its retail brand CR Vanguard is actively exploring new possibilities of developing O2O business model in the Internet sector, while Meituan-Dianping being the largest on-demand lifestyle services provider in China is a leader in various vertical markets. (Translated by Claire)
