China’s top wine and beer e-tailer nabs $80M funding to get everyone drunk

Online store Jiuxian, China’s top wine and beer ecommerce startup, this week revealed it has secured RMB 500 million (US$80 million) in series G funding. Hao Hongfeng, the startup’s chairman, revealed details of the transaction to Chinese wire service Xinhua.

Jiuxian’s investors this time around have only been described as being state-owned banks. The team’s previous round in August was contributed by China Merchants Bank, Minsheng Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, and a few other banks.

The startup has raised a total of RMB 1.4 billion (US$225 million at today’s exchange rate) in total funding since its series A in 2011. Previous VC backers include Sequoia Capital, Rich Land Capital, and Oriental Fortune Capital.

That makes Jiuxian, by our estimates, China’s tenth best-funded startup. When we looked at China’s top 15 well-funded startups earlier this year, Jiuxian was already in 11th place.

China’s online shoppers spent an estimated RMB 13 billion – a full US$2.1 billion – on wine, beer, and spirits in 2014. Jiuxian is up against rivals like Jiumei, as well as general ecommerce sites like Walmart’s Yihaodian and Alibaba’s Tmall that have been cooking up much better food and drink sections in the past couple of years.

No fizz left in IPO

This newest investment seems to indicate Jiuxian is not seeking an IPO soon, as was rumored last year. Perhaps the recent Chinese stock market crash, coupled with Chinese tech stocks like Baidu being hammered on the US markets, persuaded the team to go with VC cash rather than hit the tickers.

Part of the new funding for Jiuxian will go towards growing a spin-off, on-demand wine and beer delivery service Jiukuaidao, which taps local brick-and-mortar stores to deliver to buyers in their area. That means that delivery could be as quick as 20 minutes, the startup claims.

(Source: Xinhua – article in Chinese)