Photo credit: Stavos.
Alibaba-backed food delivery startup Ele.me made a major announcement on Tuesday. The company says it is now delivering more than 5 million orders per day. With the exceptions of Taobao and Didi Kuaidi, no other Chinese company handles as many orders each day.
Ele.me already operates in more than 700 cities across China and claims to have a user base of over 70 million.
In total, the company has raised more than US$2.4 billion in disclosed funding.
If you’re wondering how the startup got to such a lofty perch, the answer is buckets of cash. Most recently, the company raised a whopping US$1.25 billion from Alibaba. But last year it raised a US$350 round from Tencent (among others), and then another US$630 million round, and an additional round from Didi whose sum was undisclosed.
In total, the company has raised more than US$2.4 billion in disclosed funding and certainly millions more in undisclosed rounds.
Ele.me has most recently been in the headlines for negative reasons. It got called out by state-run media back in March for offering food from unlicensed and in some cases unsanitary restaurants. It’s not the first time Ele.me has been accused of that, and it’s not clear whether the company really has cleaned up its act (though it promised to).
The bad press doesn’t seem to have impacted Ele.me’s business, though – China’s internet users are apparently as hungry as ever.
Stay updated on the go with our mobile app.
Get latest insights with smoother, more personalized experience through TIA mobile app.
