FreeS Family Funding News · May | Chicecream, ACC Super Accessories, DataPipeline, and Ganying AI Secure Funding
We also released two short videos this week — follow us to check them out.
"FreeS Family Funding News" is our new column that will regularly publish funding updates from FreeS Fund portfolio companies. In addition to new investments, we'll also cover follow-on rounds for companies we've previously backed. Together, we witness every step of innovative companies' journeys from 0 to 1, 1 to 10, and 10 to 100.
This issue at a glance:
- Ganyi Intelligence announced the completion of an A+ round exceeding $10 million, with Series A investor FreeS Fund continuing to increase its stake
- ACC Super Accessories announced the completion of nearly $100 million in funding
- FreeS Fund angel-round project Chicecream completed a 200 million yuan Series A round
- FreeS Fund angel-round project DataPipeline completed a tens of millions of yuan Series B round
(This summary is limited to publicly disclosed funding information from May, sorted by announcement date.)
We've also released 2 short videos this issue — follow us for more.
1
Ganyi Intelligence announced the completion of an A+ round exceeding $10 million, with Series A investor FreeS Fund continuing to increase its stake
On May 10, financial cognitive computing engine Ganyi Intelligence announced the completion of an A+ round exceeding $10 million, led by Sinovation Ventures, with Oriental Fortune Capital's SME Development Fund participating, and existing shareholders FreeS Fund and Heima Fund continuing to invest.
**/ From the Investors / **
Why are we bullish on innovative companies in the fintech space?
Click to watch 👆
Our hearty congratulations to Ganyi Intelligence on completing this new round. Since our founding, FreeS Fund has consistently regarded fintech as one of our most important investment themes. To date, we've invested in more than 10 companies across credit risk management, supply chain finance, wealth management, securities and asset management, and insurance innovation — and we're still actively looking.
▍Why do we believe fintech has structural opportunities over the next decade?
Looking ahead, we believe innovation in financial markets will primarily emerge from the intersection of two factors: structural changes in underlying financial assets and technology.
On one hand, financial assets are undergoing structural transformation — for instance, more financial assets will shift from indirect financing toward direct financing.
On the other hand, household assets will increasingly move from traditional savings, non-standard debt, and real estate toward asset allocation and wealth management.
The other key factor is technology. AI, which has advanced rapidly in recent years, will play a crucial role in driving financial innovation.
The combination of these two factors is the main reason we see significant, rapid growth opportunities in fintech over the next decade or more.
We also observe that against this backdrop, especially in China, financial institutions will continue to play a vital role. Therefore, startups serving banks, securities firms, and insurance companies will enjoy substantial growth opportunities.
▍How can massive amounts of unstructured financial data create greater value?
Zooming in, finance has the strongest digital foundation of any industry. The value of using structured personal and enterprise data for risk control and marketing has already been proven.
But beneath the surface, vast amounts of unstructured data — more than 10x the volume — including text, voice, and images, remain underutilized or are being used very inefficiently. This data will play a much larger role in the future of financial digitalization.
Ganyi is a representative example and a company we're very optimistic about. The team comes from top-tier internet companies like Baidu and Toutiao, with more than 10 years of NLP expertise. What excites us even more is that Ganyi Intelligence has applied this technology in the financial sector, building up years of focused沉淀 and accumulation, dedicated to unlocking its value. That's why, in just three years, it has earned recognition from leading banks and securities firms and begun to replicate its products and validate its value.
We believe that with this level of focus, continuing to build NLP models and knowledge graphs in the financial industry, Ganyi Intelligence's products will have more opportunities to be embedded in clients' offerings and unlock value across more scenarios.
**/ Funding Details / **
Financial cognitive computing engine Ganyi Intelligence announced the completion of an A+ round exceeding $10 million, led by Sinovation Ventures, with Oriental Fortune Capital's SME Development Fund participating, and existing shareholders FreeS Fund and Heima Fund continuing to invest. Yunxi Capital served as exclusive financial advisor for two consecutive rounds. The proceeds will be used to expand the company's sales and R&D teams to accelerate commercial replication of its financial digitalization products and solutions.
Previously, Ganyi Intelligence also raised over 50 million yuan in its Series A round from FreeS Fund, Heima Fund, and Qianhai Equity Investment FOF, as well as over 20 million yuan in its Pre-A and angel rounds from Turing Ventures and Fenghou Capital.
Ganyi Intelligence positions itself as a cognitive computing engine, aiming to provide financial institutions with data intelligence products and services. In R&D, the company innovates based on natural language processing, knowledge graphs, and deep learning to intelligently parse and semantically understand massive, multi-source, heterogeneous unstructured data. Specifically, Ganyi Intelligence uses data intelligence to extract and integrate internal and external data,挖掘 data's application value for business, and打通 the underlying data connections between enterprise risk control and corporate customer acquisition. It also applies financial "event-based" semantic understanding technology, integrating financial events with business knowledge to support data-driven business analysis and decision management for financial institutions. (See full coverage: [36Kr Exclusive | Positioning itself as a financial cognitive computing engine, "Ganyi Intelligence" raises A+ round exceeding $10 million led by Sinovation Ventures])
2
ACC Super Accessories announced the completion of nearly $100 million in funding
On May 10, membership-based fast-fashion accessories brand ACC Super Accessories announced the completion of nearly $100 million in funding, led by Orchid Asia, with Xiaomi and Shunwei Capital participating.
**/ From the Investors / **
ACC Super Accessories is a team FreeS Fund invested in back in 2017 for their lifestyle home goods brand Jordan&Judy, which pivoted to an accessories retail chain in October 2020. Currently, ACC Super Accessories operates nearly 100 stores and plans to reach 400 by year-end.
▍Meeting users' high-frequency, diverse demand for accessories
Similar to consumer categories FreeS Fund follows like coffee and alcohol, accessories represent an incremental category where both users and the market are growing rapidly. Against this trend, the ACC founding team敏锐ly identified Gen Z's high-frequency, diverse consumption needs for accessories, creating a multi-category accessories store spanning jewelry, hair accessories, and more.
▍Retail digitalization
FreeS Fund strongly recognizes ACC Super Accessories' team's capabilities in managing multi-SKU, multi-store operations. Empowered by their parent company's product management system, they can efficiently forecast sales for new products and manage inventory for nearly 10,000 SKUs. The team also uses data-driven approaches to guide consumer behavior and improve operational efficiency at each store.
This year, ACC Super Accessories will launch its own IP-themed stores and collaborate with other FreeS Fund portfolio brands to introduce colored contact lenses. Going forward, they'll add new categories like wigs. FreeS Fund deeply appreciates the founder's commitment to "creating value and a better life for consumers." We look forward to growing together.
**/ Funding Details / **
On May 10, membership-based fast-fashion accessories brand ACC Super Accessories announced the completion of nearly $100 million in funding, led by Orchid Asia, with Xiaomi and Shunwei Capital participating. Proceeds will be used for four areas: brand building, information systems, talent, and supply chain.
Founded in October 2020, ACC Super Accessories is a membership-based fast-fashion accessories brand offering jewelry, accessories, hair accessories, and other trendy, diverse products. It currently operates primarily through offline accessories stores, with 100-300 square meter spaces featuring large-scale displays. The stores carry diverse styles with over 10,000 SKUs.
The company currently operates over 80 stores, with plans to add 50 in June and reach 500 stores in 2021. It aims to expand by 500+ stores annually, conservatively targeting 1,500 stores by end of 2023 and an IPO. ACC Super Accessories also plans to formally enter overseas markets starting in late 2021. (See full coverage: [36Kr Exclusive | ACC Super Accessories, positioning itself as the "Zara of accessories," completes nearly $100 million first funding round led by Orchid Asia])
3
FreeS Fund angel-round project Chicecream completes 200 million yuan Series A round
On May 18, Chinese ice cream brand Chicecream announced the completion of a 200 million yuan Series A round, led by YuanSheng Ventures, with H Capital and Wanwu Capital participating.
**/ From the Investors / **
What does an angel investor see in Chicecream?
Click to watch 👆
Congratulations to Chicecream on its new round. Over the past three years, Chicecream has experienced a rather bumpy journey. At the same time, it's also representative of the rise of new consumer brands during this period. Beyond redefining the ice cream brand — including its positioning, pricing, and so on — what's most interesting about the Chicecream case is how it reflects the changes that China's infrastructure, particularly cold chain logistics, has brought to this industry over the past three years.
▍How has cold chain logistics influenced Chicecream's product innovation?
When we talk about whether ice cream tastes good, the determining factor is quite simple: how easily it melts. Why is this? Generally, the richer the ingredients and the lower the water content, the lower the melting point compared to ice (zero degrees). Simply put: the more you add, the easier it melts. Chicecream uses milk and various other delicious, fresh ingredients, resulting in a relatively low melting point. Because of this, Chicecream uses a -22°C cold chain throughout.
A -22°C cold chain is relatively costly in China. But China's continuously improving infrastructure has made distribution faster, making it easier for people to buy frozen and fresh foods. Especially in 2020, with the pandemic driving online grocery shopping, better cold chain home delivery became necessary. This chain of developments has enabled products like Chicecream, which require low-temperature cold chains, to ultimately be sold online — and the proportion of cold chain logistics costs to total costs keeps decreasing.
Overall, cold chain technology allows consumers to eat better ingredients — real milk, for instance, rather than creamer. At the same time, as infrastructure develops and costs decrease, more appropriate pricing becomes possible, and these new types of ice cream with relatively good value become relatively more affordable.
▍Front-end innovation
Chicecream has done a great deal of creation and invention on the front end, whether co-branding ice cream with various other categories or mixing ice cream with diverse ingredients — all creating little surprises for consumers and boosting brand exposure.
▍Omni-channel, omni-scenario integration
Finally, over the past year and a half, we've seen the trend toward omni-scenario, omni-channel integration in consumption. Simply put: consumers discover brands online and purchase both online and offline. Online tends to be more planned, stock-up purchasing. Offline, for a category like ice cream, it's immediate, impulse purchasing.
After building brand awareness and consumer recognition online, Chicecream enables consumers to buy larger packages online and pick up single-serve products at ice cream freezers everywhere offline. This is a particularly interesting case of a new consumer brand achieving omni-scenario, omni-channel sales.
Chicecream's new round of funding — we hope that beyond leveraging China's new infrastructure, innovating and redefining the ice cream brand, and representing the new retail approach of omni-channel, omni-scenario integration, they can achieve even better results going forward.
**/ Funding Details / **
On May 18, Chinese ice cream brand "Chicecream" announced the completion of a 200 million yuan Series A round, led by YuanSheng Ventures, with H Capital and Wanwu Capital participating.
Prior to this latest round, Chicecream had successively raised angel rounds in 2018 with participation from ZhenFund and FreeS Fund, and a Pre-A round with Tiantu Capital and TouTouShiDao. Keeping pace with its funding progress, Chicecream has grown quite rapidly in recent years. During the 2020 Double 11 period, Chicecream ranked first in Tmall's ice category sales, with over 1.8 million followers on its Tmall flagship store and 34 million ice cream sticks shipped throughout 2020.
Founded in Shanghai in March 2018, Chicecream is a domestic consumer brand that has risen to prominence in recent years. It entered the ice cream market with its signature patented tile-shaped ice cream and quickly established a foothold, now offering multiple product lines including classic flavors, mini ice creams, co-branded editions, offline channel exclusives, and "Chicecream's Cakes." (See full coverage: [36Kr Exclusive | Chicecream completes 200 million yuan Series A round, the premium ice cream newcomer])
4
FreeS Fund angel-round project DataPipeline completes tens of millions of yuan Series B round
On May 24, DataPipeline announced the completion of a tens of millions of yuan Series B round, led by GSR Ventures, with Baidu Venture and Qingliu Capital participating.
**/ From the Investors / **
Congratulations to DataPipeline on completing its new round. With the pandemic, all industries — whether online or offline — have strengthened their focus on digitalization. DataPipeline has also seen better development over the past two years.
When DataPipeline's founder first returned to China, drawing on his data processing experience accumulated at companies like Yelp (a user review site for restaurants and other venues), he began providing strong technical support for enterprise digitalization. Today, DataPipeline has further落地 its technology against the backdrop of China's comprehensive digitalization trend post-pandemic. DataPipeline has become one of the best data processing tools for Chinese industries, particularly among its benchmark clients in retail, manufacturing, finance, and other sectors. Congratulations to DataPipeline on its substantial progress in recent years.
**/ Funding Details / **
On May 24, DataPipeline announced the completion of a tens of millions of yuan Series B round, led by GSR Ventures, with Baidu Venture and Qingliu Capital participating.
DataPipeline is an enterprise data integration platform provider that can process both存量 and incremental data, using visualized views. After engineers configure data sources, the system automatically cleans data according to set rules and then syncs it to corresponding data destinations. The platform also provides APIs and SDKs for enterprises to connect with their own business systems, enabling generated data to be directly synced to DataPipeline and完成 data integration. Building on its deep积累 in real-time data management, DataPipeline's product matrix has expanded to real-time data services and real-time data quality management. (See full coverage: [PEDaily | Enterprise data management platform "DataPipeline" completes tens of millions of yuan Series B round led by GSR Ventures])
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