Meituan announced on Tuesday that it has received an additional $400 million from Tencent. The investment increased Tencent's share in Meituan from 17% to 17.2%. Meituan said it will use the proceeds for technological innovations such as unmanned vehicles and delivery drones. The funding supports the company’s development of autonomous delivery capabilities. The announcement was reported by iFeng. Meituan-Dianping is China's largest on-demand services platform offering movie ticketing, food delivery, restaurant bookings, beauty services, travel and luxury goods. It serves roughly 280 million users and about 5 million businesses. The company has raised $4 billion in a funding round valuing it at $30 billion and reported roughly $3 billion in cash reserves from a previous round. Meituan-Dianping plans to invest in offline services and artificial intelligence, and has begun opening a chain of offline stores starting in Beijing. It is also developing technology in logistics and AI to support expansion into brick-and-mortar retail. The company faces competition from Alibaba and JD.com and has said it is not considering an IPO until it has established the necessary infrastructure for offline services. Meituan-Dianping operates a group-deals and broader O2O marketplace offering restaurant ordering, ticket bookings, travel reservations, wedding services, mobile payments and taxi hailing. The joint company formed in October when Meituan and Dianping merged, though both brands continue to operate independently. It reported 170 billion RMB (~$25.84B) in gross merchandise volume last year, about 150 million monthly active users, and roughly 10 million orders per day. Meituan-Dianping has emerged as the largest player in China’s O2O market and ranks No. 5 on CrunchBase’s unicorn leaderboard. The company benefited from strategic backing — Tencent invested in Dianping and Alibaba had backed Meituan (selling its roughly $1B stake after the merger). Competition in O2O is fierce, and maintaining the company’s position requires substantial capital. Meituan began as one of China’s earliest group-buying sites and is often described as the “Groupon of China.” It has expanded from group discounts into a broader marketplace for local services, including hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues. The company is currently the largest group-buying site in China by gross merchandise volume and reports 20 million daily mobile users across more than 1,000 cities. Meituan first broke even in 2013 and projected revenue growth from 16 billion yuan to 40 billion yuan in 2014. CEO Wang Xing has said Meituan is considering a U.S. initial public offering but will wait until at least 2017.

Total raised

$8.4B

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Jul 2021