36kr reported that 117 Sport, an outdoor sports platform in China, has raised tens of millions of yuan in its Pre-A round of financing backed by Beethink. The funds will be mainly used for market expansion. The Hangzhou-based company had previously received tens of millions of yuan from individual investors in an angel round.
117 Sport (formerly known as Fengchao Sport), established in February 2016, is a platform specializing in outdoor sports. It has aggregated hundreds of outdoor sports bases and outdoor sports planning companies around Zhejiang province, covering more than 30 extreme sports such as diving, kayaking, racing, polo, golf, powered paraglider and helicopter across land, sea and air spaces.
The value of the outdoor sports industry in China is expected to reach RMB 3 trillion in 2020. In 2016, the output value of the industry was RMB 1.5 trillion and the number of users reached 170 million. Targeting these outdoor sports enthusiasts, 117 Sport provides customized team building, outward bound and parent-child activities.
117 Sport provides a tour customized function which allows users to submit their desired price, number of participants, preferences and other conditions on the platform. The platform will use algorithms to come up with recommendations for the users. On the other hand, users can also talk to specific service providers and negotiate on service details directly through the platform. 117 Sport not only makes available a channel for quick communication between users and business, it also provides user evaluation, group voting, travel management tools, map generation and other features, so as to reduce the cost of user activities.
The lack of stable sources of commercial traffic has long been a bottleneck for business practitioners, and the operating costs are difficult to control due to the seasonal nature of outdoor sports. However, 117 Sport is designed to serve businesses by drawing in customers from all over the country and help merchants expand their reach and make business decisions based on user data to reduce operation costs and improve decision-making efficiency.
Currently, the platform has served 1.5 million users from more than 20 cities in China, 70% of whom have made booking on the platform more than once. 117 Sport plans to expand its business to 40 cities by establishing partnerships in targeted cities.
