Heart Capital Leads RMB Hundreds of Millions Series B Round in Yunmanman Cold Chain, Continues Betting on Digital Logistics | HeartStar PORTFOLIO

On June 15, digital cold-chain platform Manmanman Cold Chain announced the completion of its Series B fundraising of several hundred million RMB.

The round was co-led by Heart Capital and GGV Capital, with Xiang He Capital and Sinotrans Industry Fund participating as co-investors.

Manmanman Cold Chain is a one-stop cold-chain service platform incubated by Full Truck Alliance, a leading domestic digital freight platform. Following this round, Manmanman Cold Chain will continue building capabilities in user service and product development, deepening operations, and strengthening its comprehensive one-stop cold-chain service platform — connecting drivers, shippers, and enterprises to empower the industry and contribute to the digital development of China's cold-chain transportation.

Yan Han, founding partner of Heart Capital, previously served as partner at Lightspeed's first China fund and as a member of the global investment committee for Lightspeed US's late-stage opportunity fund. He was an early investor in Full Truck Alliance (Manmanman) at Series A, continuously investing across eight years and seven rounds starting from 2014, accompanying Full Truck Alliance through its NYSE listing in 2021. On leading this round in Manmanman Cold Chain, Han said: "We're delighted to be an early investor in Manmanman Cold Chain. Heart Capital has long been bullish on the digital logistics industry. From our privilege of investing in Full Truck Alliance at Series A a decade ago to partnering again today with China's fastest-growing trunk-line cold-chain platform, we've witnessed the digital transformation of China's logistics industry firsthand — it's been an honor. We believe the company can leverage its exceptional execution and market expansion capabilities to continue driving digital transformation in logistics."

Liu Yanchen, partner at Heart Capital, who has years of experience in technology and digital logistics investment, noted: "China's cold-chain logistics market is large and fast-growing. Heart Capital is very optimistic about the opportunities for digitalization and intelligence within it. Manmanman Cold Chain stands out as a leader in trunk-line cold-chain transportation, combining digital capabilities with deep industry supply chain expertise to provide more targeted, reliable services to both cold-chain shippers and drivers."

As an early-stage China-based venture capital fund rooted in China, Heart Capital focuses on technology and digitalization, with long-term attention to investment opportunities in new energy and new mobility, committed to accompanying outstanding young Chinese entrepreneurs to strengthen China and expand globally. Additionally, Heart Capital maintains a long-term focus on ESG value investing. Manmanman Cold Chain reduces carbon emissions by cutting vehicle empty-load rates, accelerates the flow of fresh produce from rural areas to markets, and contributes to China's rural revitalization efforts.

Headquartered in Nanjing, Manmanman Cold Chain's operations cover more than 300 cities and over 100,000 routes, with more than 600,000 cold-chain shippers and over 270,000 registered refrigerated vehicles — accounting for 70% of the national refrigerated vehicle fleet. From January to May this year, platform drivers transported over 21 million tons of cold-chain goods.

Manmanman Cold Chain was incubated in 2019 and launched its standalone app this February. Its core team members come from Alibaba, JD.com, Trip.com Group, and other companies. The platform uses big data and powerful algorithms to efficiently match and intelligently dispatch between shippers and carriers. Wang Yuchen, general manager of Manmanman Cold Chain, believes the platform's core value lies in improving transaction efficiency and reducing transaction costs, deeply integrating digital technology with the cold-chain logistics industry to drive the industry's digital and intelligent upgrade.

Manmanman Cold Chain business model

Cold-chain logistics enters a golden period of development

Compared to other segments of the logistics industry, cold-chain logistics is widely believed to have broader development space and potential.

In recent years, as household consumption levels have risen, demand for high-quality fresh produce and refrigerated/frozen foods has increased significantly, catalyzing substantial cold-chain demand. Compared to developed countries, China's cold-chain logistics remains in an early stage of development with enormous room for growth. Research shows that cold-chain transportation rates in developed countries have already reached 80%-90%. For example, Japan's cold-chain transportation rates for fresh produce and aquatic products exceed 95% and 90% respectively, with meat and poultry at 100%, while China's current rates for fresh produce, meat, and aquatic products stand at just 35%, 57%, and 69% respectively — indicating massive upside.

Data from the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing's Cold Chain Committee shows that China's cold-chain transportation market is entering a rapid growth track. The market size reached 418.4 billion RMB in 2021 and is projected to approach one trillion RMB by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 17.5% from 2022 to 2026.

Source: China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing Cold Chain Committee

Analysts believe that with increasingly frequent regulatory standardization policies, advancing cold-chain technology, and gradually diversifying downstream demand, China's cold-chain logistics industry is poised to enter a golden period of development.

Road transportation dominates cold-chain

But pain points need solving

Data shows that given the combined factors of speed, cost, and volume, road transportation currently accounts for 80% of China's cold-chain logistics volume — but corresponding pain points are prominent.

For shippers, before digital freight-matching platforms existed, they faced not only timeliness issues like difficulty finding vehicles and slow matching, but also potential "chain breakage" — loss of temperature control affecting cargo quality due to multi-segment transportation or non-standard temperature control — leading to costly cargo damage and disputes.

Meanwhile, China's production and consumption regions are unevenly distributed. Before freight platforms, cold-chain drivers faced pain points including unreliable cargo sources, high empty-load costs, and delayed freight payments.

Against this backdrop, Manmanman Cold Chain's "one-stop cold-chain service" emerged. Building on Full Truck Alliance's decade of technical accumulation and model innovation in freight matching, Manmanman Cold Chain quickly found product-market fit after its 2019 incubation, and proved its resilience during the pandemic by handling surging demand for essential goods and achieving counter-cyclical growth.

From "more, fast" to "good, economical"

Manmanman Cold Chain leads the pack

Supported by the rapid development of its sector, Manmanman Cold Chain's core capabilities have won dual recognition from users and the market.

Wang Yuchen revealed that the cold-chain ecosystem built by Manmanman Cold Chain achieves deep empowerment for users on both sides, mainly manifested in "more, fast, good, economical." "More" means the platform provides shippers with a rich pool of refrigerated vehicle capacity while offering drivers abundant cargo sources to choose from. "Fast" relies on the platform's powerful flywheel effect and leading freight-matching algorithms to ensure rapid transactions between shippers and drivers — currently averaging about 13 minutes from posting to acceptance, with instant matching possible. "Good" refers to quality assurance experiences for both shippers and drivers based on strong freight-matching functionality and fulfillment process controls. "Economical" means shippers save time, effort, and worry through platform-based shipping.

To further achieve high service standards and address shipper concerns, Manmanman Cold Chain also launched its "Premium Cold Chain Vehicle Service" solution for SMEs in the first half of this year.

Through digital capability building, "Premium Cold Chain Vehicle" covers the full process of operations, dispatch, transportation quality control, and transactions, delivering three key value propositions to users: First, combining historical data, supply-demand ratios, route factors, and other variables to algorithmically generate fair recommended prices for both drivers and shippers, promoting price standardization. Second, complementing online matching with offline operations staff to cover all shipper vehicle needs. Third, implementing full-process order tracking and quality control, particularly through temperature monitoring programs to solve the "chain breakage" pain point.

Industry observers believe that Manmanman Cold Chain has inherited Full Truck Alliance's excellent digital DNA. Unlike other cold-chain companies on the market, Manmanman Cold Chain aims to build a cold-chain service platform, achieving differentiation in its model. It has already established a scaled user base, with clear first-mover advantages in the freight-matching segment and initially visible competitive moats — a leading position has taken shape.

Founded in 2022, Heart Capital is a China-based early-stage venture capital fund focused on technology and digitalization, established by Yan Han, formerly founding partner of Lightspeed China. The Heart Capital team consists mainly of founding partners, the CFO, and core investors from Lightspeed China, along with senior industry investors from Cainiao and Baidu. The team's past investments include Series A investments in Full Truck Alliance (NYSE: YMM) and Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV, HK: 09868), as well as FinVolution (NYSE: FINV), 06810.HK, RoboSense, World Logistics, LandSpace, Lanhu, Micro-nano Star, Starfield, and others. Rooted in China with a global outlook, Heart Capital seeks to find world leaders who will disrupt the future. The firm advocates for the value of "people" and "heart," and looks forward to accompanying more young Chinese entrepreneurs onto the world stage.