Source Code Capital portfolio company Yijiupi raises $100 million in D+ round, bringing total Series D funding to over $300 million

源码资本·March 16, 2019·0·3

The FMCG Super Industrial Chain Platform

Source Code Capital portfolio company Yijiupi, a China-based FMCG industry internet platform and unicorn, announced today that it has raised $100 million in a Series D+ round led by Warburg Pincus.

This round comes just five months after Meituan and Tencent co-led a $200 million Series D. Following the D+ close, Yijiupi's total Series D funding reaches $300 million. LightSource Capital continued to serve as the exclusive financial advisor for this round. The proceeds will be used primarily for geographic expansion into new cities, new retail chain deployment, and product and technology R&D.

Founded in 2014, Yijiupi has consistently pursued a mission to "transform and improve FMCG industry efficiency through digitization." In less than five years, the company evolved from a wine-focused B2B platform into a multi-category FMCG industry internet platform spanning the upstream and downstream supply chain.

In 2018, the Yijiupi platform achieved GMV exceeding 13 billion yuan, with cumulative supply chain finance disbursements surpassing 8 billion yuan, and ranked among the industry leaders in actual warehouse shipment volume for FMCG B2B. Yijiupi now covers all first- and second-tier cities and major prefecture-level cities across China — more than 130 cities in total — with wine and other FMCG categories (beverages, food, personal care, small commodities, etc.) growing in parallel.

Beyond B2B, Yijiupi has expanded into logistics, warehousing, finance, chain retail, and group buying across the industry value chain. Through self-developed platforms including the Yijiupi Mall (online e-commerce transactions), supply chain and logistics platform, Yijiupi Retail platform (chain management), Weijiu Dai (supply chain finance services), and Yijingxiao (dealer onboarding and shared warehousing/distribution), the company is driving the digital transformation of FMCG distribution. Today, Yijiupi has become a comprehensive internet-enabled service platform for the entire FMCG industry chain.

Wang Chaocheng, founder, chairman, and CEO of Yijiupi, stated that in 2019 the company will achieve breakthroughs across multiple industry-related sectors. While maintaining the doubling of actual warehouse transaction volume on the Yijiupi platform, new growth and profit drivers will emerge from finance, cloud warehousing, chain retail, and new manufacturing — all powered by informatization and intelligent systems.

Wang Chaocheng, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Yijiupi

Clearly, Wang Chaocheng's Yijiupi is becoming a super-platform for the FMCG industry chain. With technology R&D and intelligent applications, plus a dense nationwide network of warehousing and distribution infrastructure, and centered on supply chain and financial resource integration, Yijiupi has found valuable business models across the entire chain from "brand enterprises — distributors — retail terminals — consumers."

Yijiupi's industry internet finance services completed the digital transformation between brands and distributors. The inventory monitoring required for risk control in turn drove the consolidation of distributor warehousing and shared distribution, while the integration of distributor warehousing and distribution across industries greatly improved channel efficiency, enabling goods to flow between upstream and downstream parties through "in-warehouse circulation" without repeated handling.

Leveraging terminal procurement big data, Yijiupi precisely executes factory-to-end ODM and OEM direct sourcing, with projected sales exceeding 500 million yuan in 2019, revealing the embryonic form of a comprehensive distribution platform.

Through Yijiupi Retail, Yikuan Convenience, and Yi'erhui discount supermarket chains, the company empowers three mainstream terminal formats — wine shops, convenience stores, and mid-sized supermarkets — with new retail models. This deep terminal operations capability in turn reinforces Yijiupi's formidable supply chain strength.

"We are very bullish on the development of industry internet in China. Different vertical industries have distinct channel structures and independent participants, but the digital application of internet technology has generated tremendous value in improving industry efficiency. Warburg Pincus will continue to focus on industry internet investment targets and further promote upstream industry integration," said Lei Zhang, managing director at Warburg Pincus. "Yijiupi is the kind of company that makes us sit up and take notice. The founder thinks clearly, operates with grounded pragmatism, and advances step by step. What Yijiupi is doing is not just connecting one link, but digitally transforming the entire industry chain; not just connecting information, but delivering real efficiency gains; not just being a transaction platform, but providing deep empowerment and services."

Warburg Pincus is a global growth partner with deep roots in China. Since entering the China market in 1994, Warburg Pincus has invested more than $12 billion in over 100 leading companies across multiple industries, making it one of the largest private equity investors in China. The firm currently invests in more than 40 Chinese companies across sectors including consumer, healthcare, financial services, real estate, and technology.

"We have been closely following various sectors of industry internet over the past few years and have consistently been optimistic about Yijiupi," said Li Hao, executive director at LightSource Capital. "In 2018, Yijiupi once again expanded its FMCG categories and upgraded from a wine-focused platform to a comprehensive FMCG service chain. It has now evolved into China's largest new retail infrastructure for FMCG. Founder Wang Chaocheng has keen commercial instincts and exceptional management capabilities, constantly innovating and exploring the company's business model. In our periodic visits to downstream customers, the feedback we collect has been positive and consistently improving. We are very pleased to see a LightSource-served enterprise making such clear contributions to industry efficiency improvements."

The competitive landscape across vertical industry internet sectors is gradually taking shape, and the FMCG industry internet space in particular is a story of extremes. On one side, pure matchmaking or regionally confined B2B platforms are falling out of favor with investors or exiting disappointingly. On the other, heavily managed, full-chain, nationally deployed platforms like Yijiupi are growing rapidly. With solid warehousing, distribution, and R&D infrastructure enabling annual actual warehouse shipments in the tens of billions of yuan, and comprehensive empowerment and cost optimization across upstream, midstream, and downstream industry participants that genuinely improves industry efficiency — this is the essence of what puts Yijiupi at the forefront of China's FMCG industry internet.