Delivery Robot Maker Keenon Closes RMB 200 Million Series B Round Led by Source Code Capital

源码资本·March 9, 2020·0·3

Keenon has partnered with more than 1,000 B2B clients, expanding into over 400 cities across China and multiple overseas markets.

On March 9, 2020, Keenon (officially Shanghai Keenon Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.) announced the completion of a 200 million yuan Series B financing round. The company had closed a new round at the end of 2019, led by Source Code Capital with follow-on investments from Walden International and Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Fund. Previous investors Yunqi Capital and Yuanwang Capital also participated. The combined total of the two rounds raised in early and late 2019 reached 200 million yuan.

The funding will primarily support continued scale-up in China's domestic food service market, expansion into overseas markets, and horizontal growth into new business units such as healthcare.

Keenon had previously raised a Series A round of tens of millions of yuan in 2016 from Yunqi Capital and Pine VC. In February 2019, it completed a Pre-B round of tens of millions of yuan from Yuanwang Capital, Yunqi Capital, and Suodao Capital.

Yiwen Hao, a board member representing Source Code Capital, commented: "Against the backdrop of shrinking working-age labor supply and maturing robotics technology, service robots are already delivering sufficiently attractive returns for merchants, and Source Code remains bullish on this sector. Keenon's products have been validated at scale in the complex restaurant environment, proving both stability and economic viability. We hope this financing will help the company further expand its global sales network and bring even smarter, more convenient products to merchants."

The unmanned delivery robot space has no shortage of players. Most companies in this track are at Series A or B stage, actively seeking scaled commercial deployment. Founded in 2010, Keenon focuses on R&D and manufacturing of indoor unmanned delivery robots, with products applicable to restaurant delivery, hotel services, medical delivery, courier and food delivery, and other scenarios.

Tong Li, founder and CEO of Keenon, noted that Meituan data shows over 10.39 million restaurants nationwide, indicating a massive domestic food service market with high delivery demand. Keenon's unmanned delivery robots are positioned around a core value proposition: effectively reducing labor costs for restaurants.

Tong Li, Founder & CEO, Keenon

Currently, Keenon has partnerships with over 1,000 B2B clients, covering more than 400 cities across China and multiple overseas markets. The company has achieved 65% penetration among China's top 100 restaurant brands, providing unmanned delivery solutions for leading chains including Haidilao, Grandma's House, Guangzhou Restaurant, and Fengmao BBQ.

Li stated that Keenon's products operate efficiently in restaurant environments, completing over 100 delivery runs per day and replacing one to two human workers. Total shipments of food delivery robots, advertising and guidance robots, and other mobile robot products exceeded 3,000 units in 2019, with the majority concentrated in food service — far above industry averages, accounting for 70-80% of the food delivery robot market's total shipments. The company projects 10,000 units for 2020.

Keenon currently operates direct sales offices in 14 cities (including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen), handling both customer acquisition and operations and maintenance. Li's plan is to expand service coverage to 25-30 cities in 2020, a target he says will not be affected by the pandemic.

On the team front, Keenon has seen robust headcount growth over the past year: 2019 staff levels were five times those of the previous year, with nearly 300 employees currently.

Beyond food service, the company is actively developing other application scenarios. Healthcare is one that delivery robot companies have been exploring in recent years, and the pandemic has, to some extent, accelerated market education.

Following the outbreak during the 2020 Spring Festival period, Keenon's robots were officially deployed in healthcare settings, providing contactless delivery of medical supplies and meals in hospitals within epidemic zones, effectively preventing transmission through physical contact.

The pandemic accelerated Keenon's deployment in healthcare. Primary use cases include delivery of medical supplies and meals for patients and medical staff in epidemic zones, as well as emergency applications such as replacing humans in disinfection and cleaning tasks. To respond to the sudden outbreak, Keenon also rapidly developed new medical robot categories including disinfection robots, speeding up their introduction and use in healthcare environments.

Compared to companies producing traditional medical robots, Keenon's key advantage lies in its proven track record of commercial-scale deployment in food service, which translates to mass production capabilities, shorter order lead times, and the ability to quickly deploy available inventory to medical markets to meet urgent mobile delivery needs in critical care wards.

Internationalization is another major direction for Keenon's business expansion. 2019 revenue approached 100 million yuan, an 8x increase from the previous year. As of Q3 2019, Keenon's overseas client base covered nearly 20 countries and regions globally, including the United States, Canada, and Europe (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary). The company plans to expand its overseas client base further in 2020.

The sudden COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 also hit China's offline food service market, raising external concerns about food service robot shipment volumes for the year.

Li believes that by April, as epidemic prevention and control stabilized and offline businesses gradually resumed operations, the restaurant industry will slowly recover and see rapid growth. At the same time, the pandemic is catalyzing a major reshuffling of the restaurant industry that will spur consolidation, M&A activity, and the launch of numerous new brands. With heightened public health awareness due to the epidemic, contactless delivery robots are becoming standard equipment for restaurants reopening after lockdowns — representing an optimal moment for Keenon to rapidly expand its market scale.

Additionally, as epidemic prevention and control has largely stabilized and the restaurant industry has begun offline reopening, Keenon has partnered with Meituan and the China Hotel Association to help establish the first batch of "contactless restaurants," providing services including contactless delivery robots and ordering to avoid unnecessary direct contact, reducing virus transmission risk while ensuring safety for customers and staff and meeting consumer dining needs during the pandemic period.