Nine consumer companies receive new funds; Cotti Coffee suspends the recruitment of "in-store stores"; Douyin starts helping catering merchants sell stored-value cards | A Broad Vision of Venture Capital
Organized | Wang Yuchan
Busy Money
The pork fresh produce channel brand "Pig Commander" completed a 6 million yuan angel round of financing
36Kr learned that the pork fresh produce channel brand "Pig Commander" recently announced the completion of a 6 million yuan angel round of financing, invested by Zhuona Capital. This round of funds will be focused on digital upgrading, store construction, supply chain optimization, and market channel expansion. The brand has currently opened more than 80 stores in Changsha, Xiangtan, and Zhuzhou. In 2024, it is expected to achieve a sales volume of approximately 350 million yuan.
HTC sold part of its XR business to Google
On January 23, HTC announced that it signed an agreement with Google. Google will pay HTC a transaction price of 250 million US dollars, and some members of HTC's XR R & D team will join Google. In this agreement, HTC's non-exclusive authorization (IP) of XR intellectual property rights will be granted to Google for use. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2025. In the eyes of the outside world, this seems to mean that Google acquires HTC's XR business. However, according to media reports, HTC Vice President and General Counsel Lu Jiade said: "This is not an acquisition, nor is it an exclusive authorization. In the future, HTC will still retain the ability to use, utilize, and even further develop it without any restrictions."
"Vitality Mart" completed a nearly 100 million yuan Series C financing
36Kr exclusively learned that Vitality Mart completed a nearly 100 million yuan Series C financing. This round of investment is led by CICC Capital, with Anhui Wentou and Baohe Venture Capital as co-investors. Vitality Mart is a trendy toy sales platform. Its game product - Hope City will be publicly tested in the middle of 2025. In the future, it will build China's first trendy toy distribution platform that combines AI virtual and real.
"AromeManpo Full of Fragrance" completed Pre-A round and Series A financing consecutively
36Kr learned that the aromatherapy emotional skin care brand "AromeManpo Full of Fragrance" has recently completed Pre-A round and Series A financing with a total amount of tens of millions of yuan. The Pre-A round investor is Introverted Fund and Kaihui Fund, and the Series A investor is Challenger Venture Capital. Mumian Capital serves as the long-term exclusive financial advisor and continues to provide strategic and capitalization support to AromeManpo. In 2025, AromeManpo plans to focus on the development of offline channels and has already formulated a specific store expansion plan.
Changchun Miaoxichu Catering Management Co., Ltd. completed a 30 million yuan Series A financing
36Kr learned that Changchun Miaoxichu Catering Management Co., Ltd.'s brand Miaoxichu National Dumplings and Clay Pot Dishes announced the completion of a Series A financing, with a financing amount of 30 million yuan. This round of financing is led by Huizhou Zhongshijin Project Investment Co., Ltd. This fund will be mainly used to strengthen brand building, enhance brand awareness and reputation, further consolidate and expand market share, optimize supply chain management, and promote the sustainable and healthy development of the brand.
Beijing Junyang Trading Co., Ltd. obtained a tens of millions of yuan Pre-A round of financing
36Kr learned that recently, Beijing Junyang Trading Co., Ltd. announced that it obtained a Pre-A round of tens of millions of yuan financing led by Tengxin Investment. Beijing Junyang Trading, established in 2021, with the legal representative Shao Qun and a registered capital of 500,000 yuan, has a wide range of business scopes, covering multiple fields such as stationery supplies, sports goods, jewelry, cosmetics, etc. The company's founder Shao Qun said that this round of financing funds will be mainly invested in the three core areas of business expansion, technological innovation, and market expansion. At the same time, a large amount of funds will be invested in the optimization of AI algorithms and model training.
"Future Intelligence" completed a tens of millions of yuan Pre-A round of financing
36Kr learned that the AI hardware company "Future Intelligence" completed a tens of millions of yuan Pre-A round of financing, led by Wanwu Venture Capital and followed by Chuxin Capital. This is the third financing completed by Future Intelligence after the seed round financing in 2021 and the angel round financing in 2023. In this round of financing, Future Intelligence will focus on the breakthrough of computing power and the improvement of algorithm services, the continuous iteration and expansion of the product matrix, the construction and expansion of overseas markets, and the improvement of the offline channel layout. As an enterprise focusing on the development of AI intelligent hardware, Future Intelligence focuses on the office scene and has launched a number of conference office headphones.
Yu Yinan from Horizon Robotics teamed up with Zhao Zhelun from Li Auto to establish VitaPower, with Horizon Robotics and Hillhouse leading the seed round
The embodied intelligence startup VitaPower recently completed a nearly 100 million yuan seed round of financing, led by Horizon Robotics and Hillhouse Capital, with Yuanjing Capital, Borui Capital (an investment institution founded by Li Ping, Vice Chairman of CATL), Baidu Ventures, and Chuxin Capital as co-investors, including financial institutions and industrial parties. The founding team of VitaPower includes Yu Yinan, former Vice President and former President of the Software Platform Product Line of Horizon Robotics, Zhao Zhelun, former Intelligent Driving Product Director of Li Auto, and Song Wei, former Chief Architect of the Software Platform and founding member of the Intelligent Driving Team of Horizon Robotics. It is understood that this round of financing will be used for the construction of the core team and product research and development. The team already has about 20 people. The goal is to research and develop to C embodied intelligence products, and it is planned to release robot products and related technologies to the public this year.
Chery Holdings obtained equity financing
On January 8, according to the Economic Observer Network, Chery Automobile's parent company, Chery Holdings Group Co., Ltd., recently obtained equity financing. The investors are Qingdao Chengtou Group, IDG Capital, and Huoyan Investment.
Company Intelligence
Cotti Coffee's "In-store Store" suspends investment invitation (The "In-store Store" model of Cotti Coffee suspends investment invitation)
On December 24, the investment invitation personnel of Cotti Coffee revealed that the "In-store Store" (convenient store) model of Cotti Coffee has suspended investment invitation.
The "In-store Store" (convenient store) model of Cotti Coffee first appeared in May 2024. On May 21, Cotti Coffee announced the launch of the convenient store model "COTTI Express", which takes the advantages of small floor area, small investment, and low break-even point. It plans to be widely implanted in convenience stores, chain restaurants and other business forms and scenarios, aiming to achieve the strategic vision of "having Cotti within 100 meters of the main consumption scenarios".
In the second half of last year, Cotti Coffee officially issued the store opening plan of "8,000 convenient stores in the second half of the year" at the half-year work conference. As of October 22, the global number of Cotti Coffee stores has exceeded 10,000. The low-threshold strategy has indeed attracted a large number of franchisees in the short term, but it has also caused many consumers to complain that the poor store opening environment has damaged the brand image of Cotti.
Regarding the suspension of investment invitation, Cotti Coffee responded: "Since the launch of the convenient store brand cooperation, certain achievements have been made in promoting the development of both brands and improving the customer experience. Recently, we will focus on sorting out and optimizing the operation management of the existing convenient stores to ensure a good and stable operation state, laying a solid foundation for rapid development. The accessible plan will continue to be promoted."
Lemobar is sprinting to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
Fujian Lemobar IoT Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Lemobar") officially submitted the prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 21, 2025, and plans to be listed on the main board. CITIC Construction Investment International and Shenwan Hongyuan Hong Kong serve as the joint sponsors.
Lemobar, established in 2014, launched the "Lemobar" brand in 2016. It combines innovative intelligent massage equipment and data-driven customized services with traditional equipment massage to provide intelligent massage services for consumers in commercial complexes, cinemas, transportation hub venues and other consumption scenarios.
As of January 15, 2025, Lemobar has established more than 45,000 service outlets for intelligent massage services, and deployed more than 500,000 intelligent massage equipment, covering 31 provincial administrative regions and 339 cities in the Chinese mainland. As of the same date, the cumulative identifiable service population of Lemobar exceeds 150 million, and the number of registered members exceeds 28 million.
Future Idea
Zhaoyiming Snack's discount supermarket new store type "Money-Saving Supermarket" is about to be fully rolled out
According to the CaiLian News Agency, the discount supermarket new store type "Money-Saving Supermarket" of Zhaoyiming Snack under Mingming Busy Group is about to be fully rolled out. Currently, the company is promoting it to seek more franchises.
Zhaoyiming introduced that the Money-Saving Supermarket is an upgrade of the store type based on the company's original business format, adding more than 400 SKUs. In addition to snacks, it will also cover department store daily chemicals, stationery trendy toys, short-shelf-life bread, eggs and other fresh products.
Industry insiders close to Zhaoyiming Snack revealed to the CaiLian News Agency reporter that since the middle of last year, the new store type has been piloted in Guangdong with good results.
TikTok began to help catering merchants sell stored value cards
TikTok Life Services opened a targeted investment invitation for stored value card products in the catering industry on January 20, 2025, including 8 categories such as fresh fruits, snacks/fast food, coffee, tea and juice, bread and baking.
The stored value cards for TikTok catering merchants only support the in-store scenario and are not applicable to home delivery / takeout delivery. They are valid for three years from the date of verification. The denomination is 50 to 1,000 yuan, that is, the denomination of a single card shall not exceed 1,000 yuan, and a single user can purchase up to 5 stored value cards.
In addition to paying a deposit of 100,000 yuan, the settled merchants must be chain merchants with a prepaid card filing certificate and a trademark registration certificate. The company must be registered for three years or more, and the number of verified orders per month in the past 3 natural months is ≥ 5,000, and the verified amount is ≥ 10 million yuan. The merchant's responsibility for order cancellation rate in the past 30 days is ≤ 2%, the bad review rate is ≤ 1.3%, and the complaint rate is ≤ 0.08%. They have not been confirmed to have run away, etc. In terms of compliance governance, if merchants are involved in illegal acts such as fraud and money laundering, TikTok Life Services will remove them.
Data Reading Consumption
It is expected that the global AI toy market may exceed 35 billion US dollars by 2030
Research and Markets, a market research institution, predicts that the global AI toy market size will grow from approximately 8.7 billion US dollars in 2022 to 35.11 billion US dollars in 2030, with an annual compound growth rate of more than 16%. On January 23, CCTV News quoted industry insiders as analyzing that AI toys are one of the best landing scenarios for the current large model on the hardware side.
The research report of China Merchants Securities on January 15 analyzed that the ability of the large model continues to upgrade, and the landing of the combination of AI and trendy toys in the companion scene is accelerating. The research report shows that the currently launched representative products include BubblePal by YueRan Innovation, the "Conspicuous Bag" embedded with the Doubao large model by ByteDance, the AI machine pet Moflin released by Casio in collaboration with the startup Vanguard Industries in November, and the Magicbox, an AI large model conversation box developed by the toy company FoloToy.
Li Yong, the founder of YueRan Innovation, introduced that within less than one month after the launch of BubblePal, more than 10,000 devices have been activated. FoloToy revealed in November 2024 that the cumulative shipments of Magicbox in the C-end have nearly 20,000 units.
In 2024, the domestic travel person-times were 5.615 billion, and the tourism industry is recovering
On January 22, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism released the domestic tourism sampling survey statistics. The results show that in 2024, the domestic travel person-times were 5.615 billion, an increase of 724 million compared with the same period of the previous year, with a year-on-year growth of 14.8%; the total domestic tourist travel expenditure was 5.75 trillion yuan, an increase of 0.84 trillion yuan compared with the previous year, with a year-on-year growth of 17.1%.
During the three-year epidemic period, the added value of the national tourism industry decreased from 449.89 billion yuan in 2019 to 446.72 billion yuan in 2022. Although the added value gap is only more than 30 billion yuan, the proportion of the added value in the gross domestic product (GDP) dropped sharply from 4.56% in 2019 to 3.71%, with a cumulative decrease of 0.85 percentage points in three years, and the average annual contraction rate (0.28%) is almost close to the sum of the growth in the proportion of the added value in the previous five years (0.3%).
In 2023, the tourism industry gradually entered a stable recovery period. The added value of the national tourism and related industries reached 548.32 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 22.74%, and the proportion in GDP also rebounded to 4.24%, an increase of 0.57 percentage points compared with the previous year. Although this proportion still has a certain gap compared with 4.33% in 2014 and 4.56% in 2019, the overall trend is improving.