Yijiupi Closes $100 Million Series C Round, Source Code Capital Backs E-commerce 'Dark Horse' in Alcohol Industry

On October 18, Beijing Yijiupi E-Commerce Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Yijiupi) announced the completion of its $100 million Series C round. Source Code Capital, which led Yijiupi's Series B round a year ago, continued to participate in the latest financing.

To date, Yijiupi — which started with an e-commerce platform targeting terminal retailers and has taken on the mission of reconstructing the alcohol supply chain — has raised a total of 1.142 billion RMB in just two years. How did Yijiupi win capital's favor amid fierce competition in the alcohol industry's "Internet Plus" landscape and become a leading "dark horse"?

1 Finding Opportunities for Transformation in a Trillion-RMB Market

Yijiupi's founding shareholder and company leader is Wang Chaocheng, founder of Shengchu Consulting, China's premier alcohol industry advisory firm. He serves as chief strategy and marketing consultant for first-tier alcohol companies including Wuliangye Yibin Co., Ltd., Yanghe Brewery, Luzhou Laojiao, Jiannanchun, Fenjiu, Jinshiyuan, and Qinghai Huzhu Barley Wine, and commands enormous prestige and influence within the industry.

At the financing announcement event, Wang Chaocheng stated that Yijiupi is rooted in China's trillion-RMB alcohol market. In this industry, the existing supply chain involves numerous intermediaries and long chains, presenting massive opportunities for transformation. Over two years of development, Yijiupi has gradually refined its "factory/merchant-to-end" operating model, reducing transaction links in the alcohol industry chain and improving channel efficiency. It has already achieved coverage across 25 provinces and 72 cities, with 600 vehicles directly serving 200,000 terminal retailers, annual sales volume reaching 5 billion RMB, and its core business has identified substantial profit potential.

Yi Cao, founding partner of Source Code Capital, also noted that the alcohol industry is large and traditional, making it ripe for innovation. It is relatively standardized yet offers margin space, making it amenable to e-commerce with profit potential. High product value with low logistics cost ratio creates opportunities to build B2B logistics pathways. The upstream supply chain has barriers that are difficult to attack but easy to defend. Downstream stores are fragmented and independent, also creating certain barriers. These objective conditions give alcohol B2B significant advantages, leaving enormous room for Yijiupi to create value.

2 Partnering with Industrial Capital to Reach Millions of Customers

After Yijiupi's Series B round, Source Code Capital began helping it onto a high-growth path of deep integration with industrial capital, connecting it with Meituan to become a strategic investor in Yijiupi.

Yijiupi COO Chen Shengqiang once stated, "Meituan values Yijiupi's leading position in the alcohol B2B space and hopes to form a strategic alliance with Yijiupi, integrating it into the dining ecosystem to provide better alcohol supply services for dining terminals. Yijiupi, for its part, values Meituan's massive customer base in the dining market — Meituan's 1.6 million dining terminals will substantially enhance Yijiupi's penetration in the primary alcohol consumption scenario, the dining channel."

At the Series C financing announcement, Shu Yiping, general manager of Meituan Dining Marketing, reiterated that Meituan and Yijiupi have enormous room for cooperation, hoping to let the four million merchants and 200 million consumers on its platform enjoy food, drink, and entertainment with ease and delight.

The promising development prospects from partnering with industrial capital undoubtedly became the strongest driving force enabling Yijiupi to rapidly complete its Series C round.

3 Building a Full-Industry-Chain Service Platform to Achieve Scale Effects

Yijiupi operates on principles of "open integration, win-win cooperation." Brand owners can join the platform through multiple methods and partner with Yijiupi. The platform opens its terminals to suppliers and shares resources. Toward distributors, Yijiupi similarly maintains an open mindset, providing various win-win cooperation models.

"Unlike many e-commerce companies, Yijiupi has followed a no-burn path from day one. Even as it has grown rapidly, Yijiupi has gradually developed certain scale effects, with its full-industry-chain service platform now taking shape. By creating scale efficiency through 'making channels shorter and thicker,' it has already achieved profitability in its core business. Extended services surrounding its core business — supply chain finance, warehousing and delivery, enterprise information services, and terminal resource integration — are also providing additional profit sources for Yijiupi," Wang Chaocheng stated. In his view, these are the core reasons Yijiupi has won capital market favor during the capital winter.

Yijiupi COO Chen Shengqiang stated that after two years of exploration, Yijiupi has built massive databases and mature operational and management experience. By further opening cooperation to industrial suppliers and distributors, starting today, Yijiupi will pursue nationwide penetration development, with a 2017 target of entering more than 150 cities, projected sales volume of 15 billion RMB, and full profitability.