Chinese Women-Oriented Deals Site Attracts $5 Million in US VC Funding

While most of the far-too-numerous daily deals sites in China are going through a rough time, the woman-oriented group buying website MaiHao has today announced that it has secured some major investment funding.

The VC backing amounts to US$5 million, coming mainly from the Washington-based ICI an unidentified US investment firm. MaiHao’s CEO and co-founder, Hong Miaolong, hasn’t explained to the media how the funding might best be spent or invested.

[UPDATE on March 3rd – After checking with ICI, it is not the source of the investment funding, and seems to be a mistranslation on my part. The local media seems to identify only an unspecified US investment firm].

The MaiHao site – at 17mh.com – sells discounted deals on products such as make-up, skincare products, and clothing. The company guarantees that all its branded products, such as Clinique and L’Oreal, are genuine items, which can be a serious issue on some group buy and e-commerce sites in the country. There are plenty of other deals sites taking a similarly specialist approach – in terms of focusing on women and a certain genre of products – such as Rakuten China’s group-buy portal which is a joint-venture between Rakuten (JSD:4755) and Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU).

The timing for the MaiHao funding news is pretty apt, as today is International Women’s Day.

[Source: JRJ Finance – article in Chinese]