Three Squirrels

Three Squirrels is a Chinese snack brand founded by Zhang Liaoyuan in 2012, originally launched as a five-person Taobao shop focused on nuts and now publicly traded on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange under ticker 300783 . The company grew into what FreeS Fund, an early investor, described as the "national snack stock" with over 3,800 employees by 2020, and its annual transaction volume exceeded 10 billion RMB in 2019 . Zhang, known as "Squirrel Dad," has steered the company through several strategic pivots: from a pure e-commerce play to a digital supply-chain platform, then toward a "manufacturing-led private-label multi-format retailer" positioning, and most recently a return to focusing on nuts as its core category while trimming SKUs from hundreds down to roughly 70 by late 2021 . Alongside the flagship brand, Three Squirrels has incubated sub-brands including小鹿蓝蓝, 养了个毛孩, 铁功基, and 喜小雀 . FreeS Fund and IDG Capital both invested in the company, with IDG capturing it as part of a broader bet on "e-commerce brands" emerging from new channels .