Chinese group buying site Meituan, has announced that it recently obtained tens of millions USD sum in its second-round funding, from Chinese B2C e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, Northern Light Venture Capital and its first round investor Sequoia Capital. The site targets sales of RMB 1.6 billion this year, according to the source.
Meituan said that it will release further details about this second- round funding sometime this week.
Meituan CEO Wang Xing claims that, the general depressed state of China’s capital markets has lasted for nearly two months now, which makes investors start to be more cautious. It’s much more difficult at this stage to start financing talks than before.
Wang indicates that the current round of financing has been received in full. He also predictes that group buying sites will see a slump in growth in the second half of this year. “Every group buying site, no matter doing well or bad, can receive fundings right now, and most of them squandered it. VCs will be more careful to spot the best from now on. Group buying sites are going to see the survival of the fittest.”according to Wang Xing.
Since last year, a number of Chinese leading group buying sites received huge sum financing, such as Lashou (www.Lashou.com) (160 million USD) and Da Zhong Dian Ping(www.dianping.com) (100 million USD). At this moment, group buying business is under fierce competition. Companies are all busy absorbing funds to gain customers and seize the market. While this situation may gradually changes in the near future as the market turns more stable and mature.
