Wine E-Tailer WineNice Gives Taster of New Series B Funding Round

Just a week after one rival pocketed $32 million in funding, an executive at the wine e-commerce site WineNice – or Jiumei in Chinese – has revealed in an interview that it’s on the verge of wrapping up series B funding worth over RMB 100 million (US$15.8 million).

WineNice.com completed its first major round at the end of last year when it netted RMB 80 million ($12.64 million) from Shenzhen Capital Group. The CEO, Lu Yide, did not identify who’d be leading this next injection of capital. But in his talk to Chinese tech blog Donews, he did explain that the RMB 100 million or more in funding would be used to bolster its B2C logistics and to grow its offline retailing operations.

The site initially grew slowly after launching in 2008. WineNice mostly sells foreign wines, but also has a selection of Chinese rice wines and overseas liquors. Most of its stock is in the pretty affordable sub-200 RMB ($32) category, though I spot a 1988 Pétrus for a cool 30,000 RMB ($4,740).

A WineNice wine "expericence store" takes the e-tailer into the offline world. (Image: winesino.com)

As for its offline ventures, it aims to have 100 brick-and-mortar stores around China by the end of the year, such as its “experience stores” (pictured right) which hold regular wine-tasting events.

Now, claims Lu Yide, WineNice saw RMB 150 million ($23.7 million) in sales revenue last year, and he aims for “this to grow to RMB 1 billion [$158 million] in revenue within two to three years.”

WineNice also has virtual stores on Tmall, China’s biggest online mall, as well as on Yihaodian, the largest food-oriented e-commerce site in the country.

We’ll update with more details once the funding news becomes officially official.

[Source: Donews – article in Chinese]