The holiday is just around the corner, and we want to share six pieces of good news with you | FreeS Fund Chalkboard · September

Autumn is the season of harvest.

As the holiday approaches, we'd like to share some good news with the friends who have long followed and supported FreeS Fund:

• Lifestyle home goods brand Jordan & Judy completed its angel round, with FreeS Fund participating;
• Tea chain Teasoon completed its Pre-A round, led by FreeS Fund;
• Office unmanned retail shelves Guoxiaomei and Fanqiebianli strategically merged to accelerate omnichannel expansion in office new retail.

We will work alongside these passionate teams to bring China's ever-upgrading consumers higher quality and more convenient lives.

We're also delighted by what some young pioneers have achieved:

• FreeS Fund portfolio companies IceKredit, iBeidiao, Jieshuibao, and Zhoupu Cloud Warehouse made the "Enterprise Services TOP50 Dark Horse List";
• FreeS Fund portfolio company CloudBrain Technology was named one of GMIC's (Global Mobile Internet Conference) top ten AI rising stars, the only Chinese company on the list;
• FreeS Fund founding partner Li Feng was named one of 36Kr's "Top 10 Investors in China's New Finance Sector."

As a young fund, FreeS Fund will continue to stay grounded, forge ahead, and diligently explore the unknown — looking forward to constantly meeting innovation and the extraordinary.

Happy holidays!

Jordan & Judy Completes Angel Round

Lifestyle home goods brand Jordan & Judy has completed a multi-million-yuan angel round. Investors include Xingka Te Gou, Haifeng Zhicheng Investment, Juzhuo Capital, Honghuang Capital, and FreeS Fund. Jordan & Judy co-founder Ye Guofu is also co-founder of the well-known lifestyle retail brand MINISO.

In recent years, consumer demand for home goods has continued to grow — toothbrushes need monthly replacement, bedside aromatherapy machines are now standard, and so on. Riding this trend, internet giants including NetEase Yanxuan and offline retail brands like ZARA have entered the lifestyle home goods space.

Jordan & Judy's distinctive advantage lies in its years of ODM (Original Design Manufacture) background. It operates six factories in Dongguan with 100,000 square meters of production space and over 3,000 employees. For the past 14 years, it has manufactured for hundreds of foreign companies and is also one of MINISO's largest suppliers. Currently, Jordan & Judy is building its own brand and filing for patents.

Jordan & Judy founder Luo Huide explained that the brand achieves extreme cost-performance through three factors: large-scale raw material procurement; the factories previously exported 80% of goods to Japan, giving them high-quality production capabilities; and the six factories' multi-category production capacity with highly efficient machinery.

Jordan & Judy also has strong design capabilities, having hired four full-time American designers and two Hong Kong designers, plus more than a dozen part-time designers. After designers create original ID (industrial design), the in-house team handles structural design to bring concepts to life.

In brand positioning, Jordan & Judy sits slightly above MINISO. The brand has launched 40 products across hundreds of SKUs. Its best-selling item, a hot water bag, is on track to sell over 10 million units this year.

On retail model, Jordan & Judy doesn't build its own channels but first leverages MINISO's channel advantages to scale, then distributes across multiple channels. Currently, Jordan & Judy partners with more than 30 offline channels, occupying over 10,000 points of sale. This distribution model maximizes product visibility and consumer mindshare.

Moreover, today's lifestyle brands no longer simply stock shelves for channels — they help channels serve end consumers through various means, empowering the channel. After delivering products, Jordan & Judy provides display guidance, product videos, photos, and marketing planning services.

Full coverage: MINISO Co-founder Ye Guofu Enters Home Goods Industry, Secures Multi-Million-Yuan Angel Funding

Investor Perspective

Huang Hai, Vice President, FreeS Fund

Email: hai@freesvc.com

Home goods concept stores and lifestyle concept stores are important components of "new retail" and a core growth trend. This pattern has already been validated in Europe and America.

In recent years, China's home goods industry has entered rapid development. Giants across sectors including Xiaomi and NetEase Yanxuan have made moves, targeting this market through offline retail stores or online e-commerce platforms.

Jordan & Judy was founded and developed amid this trend. Founder Luo Huide has years of experience manufacturing for overseas home goods brands and has supplied MINISO in recent years. Rich supply chain experience and excellent product design capabilities ensure the brand's combination of quality and affordability — precisely what the market lacks.

In China's current lifestyle home goods market, Jordan & Judy is exceptionally rare in possessing both brand attributes and strong supply chain, channel, and product design capabilities, giving it excellent strategic positioning.

Teasoon Completes Pre-A Round

Tea chain Teasoon completed an RMB 8 million Pre-A round in June, led by FreeS Fund with WeiLie Investment and Discovery Venture following. Teasoon previously received angel funding from CICC Capital in February and currently operates three stores in Shanghai, with the first two profitable.

"New-style tea" is a small风口 (hot trend) this year. The term distinguishes itself from traditional teahouses and milk tea shops, characterized by quality ingredients (fresh milk instead of creamer, high-grade tea bases), higher prices, and upgraded spaces. In the competitive new-style tea market, Teasoon found a differentiated positioning: business tea.

Teasoon locates in shopping malls in business districts, surrounded by high-end office buildings, targeting business professionals aged 25-40. Founder Jiang Jiadao describes this demographic as "wearing white shirts and employee badges, unwilling to wait over 15 minutes, absolutely not lining up at HEYTEA. They need a space for business meetings and drinks that aren't terrible."

Each Teasoon store currently has 50-100 core users who visit an average of 12 times per month. Jiang believes the key to this repeat purchase rate is sufficient space and memorable products.

Teasoon stores are around 100 square meters, with black-gold and natural wood design elements creating a premium,轻奢 (light luxury) impression. Products span cheese foam tea, fruit tea (sourced through Tiantian Orchard), summer ice brews, and classic original leaf series, emphasizing original tea and fresh extraction, priced between RMB 25-35.

Beyond conventional flavors, Teasoon has innovated: retaining chewable cheese granules in its cheese foam for unique texture; drawing Espresso inspiration to grind Da Hong Pao and flash-extract for 90 seconds; using niche teas like Lapsang Souchong and White Peony.

Current sales breakdown: cheese foam tea 30%, fruit tea 35%, original leaf tea 20%, other 5%. Compared to other tea brands, Teasoon's original leaf tea share is relatively high, with plans to further reduce cheese foam tea proportion.

Full coverage: "Teasoon" Secures RMB 8 Million Pre-A Round, Targeting Business Professionals with Differentiated Premium Tea

Investor Perspective

Wang Xiaojin, Early-Stage Project Lead, FreeS Fund

Email: xiaojin@freesvc.com

Health is one of the drivers of consumption upgrading. Tea possesses natural, healthy characteristics and suits Chinese tastes, increasingly winning favor among young consumers in recent years.

Amid fierce competition in leisure tea, Teasoon chose a different positioning: targeting core business professionals.

Teasoon focuses on the premium business market, opening stores within office buildings to cover white-collar workers within a 500-meter radius. Compared to mall or street-front locations, office building rents are lower and the working population has higher repeat purchase rates. Meanwhile, Teasoon's products emphasize the "original tea" health concept, preserving tea's original slightly bitter, slightly astringent taste. Original tea has a higher acceptance threshold but is addictive and drives habitual consumption.

We believe the "product + scenario" differentiation gives Teasoon unique competitive advantages.

Guoxiaomei and Fanqiebianli Complete Strategic Merger

Office unmanned convenience shelf "Guoxiaomei" announced its strategic merger with smart retail vending machine player "Fanqiebianli," aiming to accelerate layout and development speed in unmanned convenience and office new retail, continuing to consolidate its leading position in unmanned convenience.

Guoxiaomei recently completed an over-$10 million Series A led by BlueRun Ventures and IDG Capital, with FreeS Fund participating. Within three months of founding, Guoxiaomei has raised over RMB 100 million in total funding.

Post-merger, the combined company will use "Guoxiaomei" as the unified brand for omnichannel new retail layout. Guoxiaomei founder and CEO Yan Limin will serve as CEO of the merged company, Fanqiebianli founder and CEO Yin Zhihua will become president, and former Meituan COO Jiawei Gan will serve as strategic advisor. Yin Zhihua will also directly lead the new company's city expansion, logistics distribution, and smart hardware teams.

On the merger, new company CEO Yan Limin stated that Guoxiaomei values the important consumption scenario of white-collar users in CBD office buildings, while Fanqiebianli's smart refrigerator technology layout and best commercial practices can effectively expand the SKU breadth of on-site office sales.

Post-merger, neither side's original business direction will change significantly, but priority will go to developing self-service convenience shelves and smart retail vending machines for office scenarios. New company management stated both sides will complement and reinforce each other in business direction, seizing the current window of rapid unmanned retail development to quickly reconstruct office convenience consumption solutions suitable for China, thereby meeting users' consumption upgrading needs.

With the merger, the office self-service retail system will also continuously improve. Both parties will use their big data marketing systems to analyze consumption behavior at network points, intelligently manage platform merchandise, and through their own logistics timely adjust merchandise and restock, intelligently pushing and providing users with needed information and products in any scenario.

Full coverage: [36Kr] Guoxiaomei and Fanqiebianli Merge, Accelerating Omnichannel Layout in Office New Retail

Investor Perspective

Li Feng, Founding Partner, FreeS Fund & Han Zhuofei, Analyst

Email: feng@freesvc.com, hanzhuofei@freesvc.com

Guoxiaomei founder Yan Limin previously served as general manager of Juhuasuan. We've known him for seven years and understand and recognize his rich experience in retail, operations, and enterprise management efficiency (ERP, SaaS). We believe this successful experience will help Guoxiaomei break through in office unmanned shelves.

The Guoxiaomei-Fanqiebianli merger will enable both sides to reach the most consumers at the lowest cost and fastest speed, and through hardware upgrades and category and channel expansion, build a comprehensive three-dimensional new retail system.

Moreover, the two teams are highly complementary in capabilities and experience. Guoxiaomei has advantages in traffic monetization and operations; Fanqiebianli has advantages in offline and smart hardware. This is an organic merger where "1+1>2."

Guoxiaomei's team ranks among the industry's best in vision, experience, and execution. We believe that under CEO Yan Limin's leadership, Guoxiaomei will continue to lead the office unmanned shelf field, becoming a great company while truly making people's lives more convenient.

4 Companies Make

"Enterprise Services TOP50 Dark Horse List"

On September 21, the "Enterprise Services TOP50 Dark Horse Selection" hosted by iHeima and B2B Circle was held at Zhongguancun Startup Street. The event was co-hosted by Shenzhou Shunliban, co-listed by China (Nanjing) Software Valley, and strategically guided by Zhongguancun Innovation and Entrepreneurship Season Organizing Committee.

FreeS Fund portfolio companies IceKredit, iBeidiao, Jieshuibao, and Zhoupu Cloud Warehouse stood out from 274 applicant companies to make the top 50 list, recognized by 33 judges as the most promising enterprise services startups.

Full coverage: Enterprise Services TOP50 Dark Horse List Released, Enterprise Services Camp Debuts

CloudBrain Technology Selected

"GMIC Top Ten AI Rising Stars"

On August 25 US time, the GMIC (Global Mobile Internet Conference) Pebble Beach summit concluded in California. This year's GMIC took "New Science Renaissance" as its theme, focusing on "AI First" trends and AI's latest breakthroughs and monetization potential in healthcare, transportation, fintech, and new materials, selecting 10 most representative and commercially promising AI startups across these fields.

FreeS Fund portfolio company CloudBrain Technology, as the only Chinese AI startup, made the TOP10 list.

As a technology-focused AI company, CloudBrain has clear advantages in deep learning algorithm effectiveness and performance. Its proprietary BrainSync technology enables optimal model performance through incremental synchronization of deep learning models between terminals and servers, and among servers in different business domains. This technology avoids privacy leakage, maximizing user privacy protection while delivering AI value.

Zhang Benyu stated that various industries and AI are both developing rapidly, yet separated by a "black box." Facing this difficult gap between industries and AI, as a leading company at the forefront of industrial growth, CloudBrain Technology's vision is to serve as the bridge connecting these two distinct systems.

Full coverage: CloudBrain Technology Selected GMIC Top Ten AI Rising Stars, Becoming Only Chinese Company on List

FreeS Fund Founding Partner Li Feng Named 36Kr "Top 10 Investors in China's New Finance Sector"

36Kr believes that as finance and technology integration accelerates, through technology driving financial development, technology empowering finance, and technology disrupting or even redefining finance, "new finance" has emerged. New finance refers to business forms that innovate traditional financial industry products, services, and delivery methods using internet, information technology, and various technological means to improve efficiency and effectively reduce operating costs.

New finance presents enormous market opportunities, yet investors and entrepreneurs in this field have always tread carefully. The word "finance" itself means opportunity and risk coexist, and new finance investing is even more an adventure of professionalism, courage, and responsibility. Amid risk and opportunity, certain investors stand out.

On September 22, 36Kr released its "Top 10 Investors in China's New Finance Sector" list, with FreeS Fund founding partner Li Feng making the list. The list evaluated 51 candidate investors across dimensions including new finance investment track record, project involvement, and board seats, ultimately selecting 10 outstanding individuals.

Full coverage: China "New Finance Sector" Top 10 Investors List