1-hour delivery startup from China crowdsources local convenience stores, snags $20M funding

Beequick, a food and drink delivery startup, has announced it secured a US$20 million series B round of funding led by Hillhouse Capital with participation from Sequoia Capital, according to iYiou. Beequick says it’s now valued at US$200 million.

Founded in May last year, Beequick got its start in Beijing by promising one-hour delivery of snacks, beverages, liquor, coffee, and fruit. It has since expanded to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and a few other cities. In October last year, the company completed a US$20 million series A round led by Sequoia.

Beequick takes advantage of a large network of local convenience stores to find the nearest vendor with the requested items. The startup says it has more than 10,000 convenience stores on board, who deliver over 30,000 orders daily. Payments are made in the app.

Note that the startup offers deliveries in China’s four biggest cities, but neither my address in Shenzhen nor my previous address in Beijing seemed to be within the delivery area. Both are fairly centrally located.

While name-brand convenience stores like 7-Eleven and Q-Mart are common in China, even more frequent are privately-owned shops with generic names like "cigarette and liquor store" or "fruit and vegetable stand." These primarily make up Beequick’s network.

O2O on-demand delivery is no longer a niche in China. Crowdsourced local logistics startup Renren Kuaidi took US$15 million series A funding in November;
Chengdu-based Call a Chicken raised a US$1.6 million angel round in December; Nanjing-based Line0 closed a US$30 million series B investment led by Tencent in January; and Call a Delivery netted US$480,000 angel funding in February.

Beequick is available on the web, Android, iOS, and WeChat.

(Source: iYiou)