Ecommerce titan JD cooks up $50 million in funding for startup food delivery service

Online food delivery service Daojia has pulled in US$50 million in series D funding from a major backer, the startup revealed today. That investor is JD (NASDAQ:JD), the ecommerce firm that’s Alibaba’s biggest rival in China.

This is JD’s second input into Daojia, following an undisclosed amount of series C funding almost exactly 12 months ago.

Daojia covers eight major cities in China. Hao Sun, Daojia’s founder and CEO, says the major new investment will partly go towards “our target of operating in 20 to 30 cities in China by next year.”

At present, Daojia has nearly one million registered customers, and partners with more than 3,000 restaurants. It employs more than 1,000 delivery staff across the cities it covers.

No leader has yet emerged in the online food delivery space in China, with the offerings split across cities and even price ranges. Some very localized services still rely on pamphlets and phone-based ordering. But Daojia appears to be the biggest so far in terms of geographic coverage and the range of food on offer. Rocket Internet’s Foodpanda does not operate in China.

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