Rongbao · January | E-commerce and Retail Players Build Out Origin-Region Supply Chains; Multiple Chip, AI, and Enterprise Service Firms Close New Funding Rounds
Discover and accompany creators of a beautiful life.
About Rongbao: Rongbao is a monthly digest that curates noteworthy news and insights from Gaorong Ventures and its portfolio companies. Each issue shares just 10 items — including important funding updates and company milestones, but also new trends, innovations, and perspectives. As Gaorong's vision of "creating a better life through innovation" suggests, we believe every step forward unlocks infinite possibilities.
New E-Commerce · Pinduoduo Ensures Holiday Supply as New Year Goods Sell Strong on Both Sides
With Spring Festival approaching and pandemic prevention measures still in place, online consumption has surged. Recently, products tagged for Pinduoduo's "New Year Goods Festival" saw an 81% year-over-year sales increase. To meet robust demand, Pinduoduo partnered with quality merchants and courier companies to launch a "Spring Festival Without Closing" campaign, offering consumers 24/7 uninterrupted product and logistics services.
While ensuring holiday supply, Pinduoduo continues enhancing its "more savings, more fun" consumer experience. During this year's festival, the platform will distribute 3 billion yuan in discount red envelopes and create "Super Brand Day" livestreams. As China's largest platform for agricultural products moving upstream from farms to consumers, Pinduoduo also collaborated with over 1,000 agricultural production regions to fully satisfy consumer demand for "rice bags" and "vegetable baskets" during the holiday. The platform has continued launching fresh produce group buys of 10,000-plus participants, with all agricultural products shipped directly from origin.
Fresh Retail · Dingdong Maicai Releases 2020 Online Grocery Big Data Report, Continues Origin-Area Expansion
Dingdong Maicai recently released its 2020 "Online Grocery Shopping" big data report. The report shows that premium ingredients gained strong consumer traction — organic vegetable sales in 2020 rose 798% compared to 2019, while Hong Kong-supply-standard vegetables jumped 1,651%. The company's live seafood home delivery service also proved popular: over 21,376 tons of fresh aquatic products reached consumer tables via Dingdong Maicai couriers in 2020, a 249-fold increase from 2019.
In user demographics, 70% of 2020 orders came from women, with post-80s consumers exceeding 50%. Meanwhile, silver-haired users born in the 1950s and 1960s grew 210% during the year. At the pandemic's peak in 2020, Dingdong Maicai leveraged its direct-from-origin procurement strengths to "ensure supply and stabilize prices," providing over 1,000 tons of affordable vegetables and 60 tons of meat daily nationwide — becoming a guardian of family dining tables.
Dingdong Maicai now operates 350 direct-supply fresh produce bases, works with over 600 origin-direct suppliers, offers more than 5,400 fresh product SKUs, and sources 85% of its agricultural products directly from production bases. Going forward, the company will continue expanding its origin-area presence, using fresh produce digitization to drive agricultural supply-side upgrades and remain dedicated to safeguarding consumers' dining tables.
New Brands · Genki Forest Headlines Bilibili's New Year's Eve Gala, Embracing Youth and Putting Users First
At the close of 2020, Genki Forest served as title sponsor of Bilibili's "Most Beautiful Night" New Year's Eve gala. Drawing from young users' interests, the brand created a series of social media content. That evening, Genki Forest's official Bilibili account gained over 1 million followers.
In November 2020, when Bilibili released its "China Z 100" list of the top 100 products for Chinese youth — selecting items that improved quality of life and showed care for young people — Genki Forest's Ran Tea ranked first in the beverage category. During 2020's Double 11, Genki Forest simultaneously topped water and beverage sales on both Tmall and JD.com, with total bottles sold increasing 344% year-over-year.
As an innovative beverage company with in-house R&D and design, Genki Forest adheres to a "users first" mission and "global service for global markets" philosophy. Breaking flavor barriers through health-focused products, it promotes healthy living and more attentive user experiences. Building from its "0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories" starting point, the company has successively launched Ran Tea, milk tea, micro-bubble juice, electrolyte water, energy drinks, and健美轻 tea following its sparkling water debut.
Semiconductors · EDA Company Xinhuazhang Announces A+ Round, Accelerating EDA 2.0 R&D
In January, Xinhuazhang, a leading EDA (electronic design automation) intelligent software and systems company, announced the completion of a multi-hundred-million-yuan A+ round. Gaorong Ventures had led Xinhuazhang's Series A in December 2020 and participated again in this round.
Xinhuazhang brings together global EDA industry elites and top talent from cutting-edge technology fields. With an open, future-oriented technical faith centered on creating value, the company integrates AI, machine learning, cloud computing, and other frontier sciences to build EDA 2.0 technology for the digital society. By redefining chip design methodology, it aims to improve chip innovation efficiency and accelerate the construction of an open, prosperous industry ecosystem.
Just months after founding, Xinhuazhang has launched two groundbreaking products embodying EDA 2.0 principles — "Lingdong," a high-performance multi-functional programmable adapter solution, and a pioneering domestic simulation technology supporting Chinese computer architectures. Both are compatible with current ecosystems while supporting future-oriented architectures to meet high-performance, high-efficiency verification needs.
Game AI · Hyperparameter Raises $30M A+ Round, Accelerating Game AI Expansion
Game AI company Hyperparameter recently announced the completion of a $30 million A+ round. Gaorong Ventures had invested in Hyperparameter's Series A and participated again in this round.
Founded in early 2019, Hyperparameter is dedicated to transforming game content production through AI technology. Its team spans AI and gaming with full-stack capabilities in "AI research + AI commercialization + AI game development" — one of the few globally to successfully deploy AI in large commercial games and generate revenue. Founder Yongliu Liu (Kakar Liu) was formerly general manager of Tencent AI Lab and led projects for Go AI "Fine Art" and Honor of Kings AI "Juewu."
Drawing on extensive experience and leading capabilities in machine learning, reinforcement learning, and large-scale systems engineering, Hyperparameter built the "Delta" game AI platform. Using a new "AI + game" development pipeline, it drives paradigm innovation on both the development and experience sides.
The Delta platform currently supports cross-cloud scheduling of over 500,000 cores, handles more than 500,000 concurrent AI online, and daily serves hundreds of millions of players across over 40 countries with hundreds of billions of API calls. Hyperparameter's AI services have generated substantial commercial value for multiple games with annual revenue exceeding 1 billion yuan, spanning sandbox, open world, FPS, MOBA, and casual competitive genres.
Enterprise Services · Small-Business MRO E-Platform Yimaigongpin Raises Tens of Millions in Series B
Small-business MRO e-commerce platform Yimaigongpin recently announced the completion of a tens-of-millions-of-dollars Series B, with Gaorong Ventures participating. Following this round, Yimaigongpin will continue strengthening R&D investment and expanding nationwide sales and service capabilities for small customers, while empowering upstream suppliers.
Yimaigongpin focuses on serving small businesses, providing long-tail spot supply chains and one-stop fulfillment services. It currently covers over 30,000 downstream customers, offering 1 million industrial products with over 10,000 SKUs available for same-day shipping.
Since commencing operations in 2017, Yimaigongpin has maintained 300% annual sales growth and built a complete data prediction system enabling "meeting the most same-day shipping demands with the least inventory." In 2020, it launched an open platform sharing customer traffic, stocking capacity, and fulfillment capabilities with upstream suppliers — now working with nearly 100 suppliers.
Enterprise Services · Zhizhi Technology Completes Series A, Offering Integrated Solutions for Retailers
Smart retail integrated solution provider Zhizhi Technology recently completed its Series A. Gaorong Ventures first invested in Zhizhi Technology in 2018 and participated in its 2020 Pre-A round.
Founded in 2018, Zhizhi Technology provides retailers with integrated "user, store, warehouse" full-link solutions. Supported by a dual middle-platform system of business and data platforms, it uses multi-terminal SaaS systems to cover the full process from supply chain to consumer end, paired with data analytics platforms that provide decision-making foundations for enterprise and merchant leaders.
Zhizhi Technology's SaaS systems cover customer acquisition in the pre-consumption phase, enhanced shopping experience and user data accumulation during consumption, and precision marketing based on user behavior and data analysis in the post-consumption phase — empowering merchants to comprehensively improve sales per square meter.
Currently focused on fresh fruit, supermarket convenience, light dining, and snack categories, Zhizhi Technology serves hundreds of retail brands encompassing nearly 10,000 stores.
Industrial Design · Shexu Technology Raises Tens of Millions in Angel Round, Building Industrial Intelligent Design and Manufacturing Cloud Platform
AI industrial SaaS provider Shexu Technology recently announced the completion of a tens-of-millions-of-yuan angel round, with Gaorong Ventures participating.
Founded in 2020, Shexu Technology is dedicated to "building an industrial intelligent design and manufacturing cloud platform." It has launched the AI+CAD automated design SaaS software — the Design Order 2.0 system. By integrating AI technology into industrial CAD design software, and leveraging accumulated industrial data, industry knowledge, and deep learning algorithms, it helps industrial clients dramatically improve efficiency across design, simulation, process planning, and manufacturing — compressing design work that originally took dozens of hours to minute-level.
Early on, Shexu Technology received seed funding from HG Intelligent and undertook automotive equipment design projects from the company. It has also partnered with mainstream domestic equipment manufacturers including SAIC and Tesla equipment suppliers Tianjin Fuzhen and Jiangsu Beiren.
Fintech · XTransfer Completes Series C2, Providing Financial Solutions for SMEs' Global Expansion
In January, XTransfer, a one-stop cross-border finance and risk control service for foreign trade enterprises, announced the completion of its Series C2. Gaorong Ventures had invested in XTransfer's angel round and participated in multiple subsequent rounds.
By partnering with multinational banks and financial institutions, XTransfer has built a unified multi-currency clearing network globally, providing SMEs with financial solutions for international expansion including cross-border and local collection, payments, and foreign exchange treasury management. XTransfer has also built anti-money laundering risk control infrastructure centered on SMEs. Following this round, XTransfer will further upgrade its AML risk control system, continuing to build a big data and AI-driven intelligent risk control system to improve the accuracy and efficiency of transaction electronic information collection and verification.
As the pandemic reshapes global trade, XTransfer helps micro, small, and medium export enterprises access multinational banking services, significantly reducing international remittance fees and currency conversion costs while providing value-added financial services. It currently serves over 100,000 SME foreign trade clients.
Ronghui · Returnee Elites Visit Gaorong Ventures
In January, nearly 20 PhD and postdoctoral researchers from Cambridge and Oxford, along with nearly 20 MBAs from Wharton, visited Gaorong Ventures. At the exchange, the Gaorong team and returnee elites discussed investment themes including frontier technology, industrial upgrading, and new consumption. Galixir founder and CEO Dr. Chengtai Li also shared on AI+new drug R&D progress, covering pain points in drug development, AI empowerment of new drug R&D, and cross-disciplinary research.
