China Funding Flow: VC market witnesses downfall in new startups

What seems to be a new trend emerging out for Chinese startups, the ecosystem has been witnessing a decrease in the number of new startups, which saw down of 74% in comparison to last year.

However, the funding amount and Venture Capitalist (VC) back up in the segment have grown slightly. According to Tencent News and startup database, IT Juzi jointly report on venture capitalist trend in the first half of this year, the number of startups funded in the first quarter of 2017 was lesser than the number of startups funded during the same time last year.

The amount funded during VC deals has increased by 37 percent in H1 2017. The majority of the money was poured into the automobile and transportation sector, which saw RMB 90.5 billion funding, taking up 37% of the total number in 2017 H1.

In 2016, startups from artificial intelligence and sharing economy space were the most preferred by VCs and have remained so this year. AI startups with intelligent robots were the top choice of VCs. In sharing economy space, car and bike sharing startups were picked by investors followed by Power Bank sharing, Umbrella sharing and cloths rental startups.

Below is the list of recently funded startups, which can shed light on the Chinese startup ecosystem. In the last 15 days, 23 deals have been closed which raised a total funding of $2.3 billion. Out of 23 deals, the capital city Beijing saw 10 deals with $715.7 million of investment.

Artificial Intelligence:

Infervision based out of Beijing has raised $18 million in series B round from Qiming Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital China, and Genesis Capital. Infervision uses deep learning technology and computer vision to help diagnose cancers.

Yi+ has raised $15 million from Haitong Securities, BRJ Group and the Bank of Beijing’s investment arm. It provides intelligent media and marketing solutions.

JingChi, a self-driving technology has raised $52 million in pre-series A from Qiming Venture, NVIDIA GPU Ventures and others.

Yunwen Technology, Guangzhou based AI company has raised $4.5 million in series A round from Green Pine Capital Partners, Landray also participated in the round. Yunwen technology develops customer service robots.

Food and Beverages:

MissFresh has raised $230 million in series C+ round from Tiger Global Management and Genesis Capital. MissFresh is an e-commerce company that offershigh-qualityy fresh fruit, vegetable, meat, eggs, and seafood to Chinese consumers.

Fenfenzhong, has raised $16.7 million in series A round led by China's National SME development fund with participation by THG Ventures. Fenfenzhong is a one-stop service platform for restaurants to shop thousands of items including fresh meat and vegetables, frozen food, spices, drinks and utensils online.

Jiahe Foods, a manufacturer of non-dairy creamer, fresh bakery products and processed food has raised $25 million from The International Finance Corporation.

Sports:

Banana Culture, Shanghai-based startup has secured $30 million series B round from Matrix Partners China, Esport Capital, IDG Capital, Seeinfront Capital. Banana Culture hosts e-sports competitions, and produces video games-related TV shows.

Doing Now raised $75 million from Yao Capital, they are sports school for children which have a network coverage in 18 cities and comprising nearly 3,000 coaches and one million students.

Others:

Yunzhangfang.com, SAAS-based startup has raised $14 million in series B round led by Hillhouse Capital Group, the startup aims to provide services to SME and accounting companies to manage their finance and tax issues more easily.

 Gaosi Education, has raised $83 million from China Media Capital (CMC) and AlphaX Partners. Gaosi offers online live streaming courses teaching Chinese, English, math, history, chemistry, and physics coupled with offline training centres for selected topics.

YH Global, has raised $182 million in series A round led by Yonghua Capital and Co-Energy Finance, they deal in Transportation, logistics & international Freight solutions.

Bellen, Beijing-based chemical startup has raised $38 million in series B round from Legend Capital and Zhongjinqichen (PE investment arm of CIC), it is a Chinese medical contract research organization which focuses on developing chemical synthesis for drugs.

XW Laboratories, a healthcare startup has raised $17.5 million in series B round led by WI Harper and Elements Capital, they develop a portfolio of internally discovered product candidates for the potential treatment of neurological disorders.

Royole Corporation, has raised $800 million in mix round of equity ($240 million) and debt ($560 million), Royole Corporation is a global pioneer and manufacturer of advanced flexible displays, flexible sensors, and smart devices.

Distrii, Beijing-based Co-working space has raised $30 million in series A round from Hefu Capital, Junzi Capital, CDL China Ltd, Distrii have 16 co-working spaces in Beijing and Shanghai.

Yitiao, based out of Shanghai has raised $40 million in series C from CBC Capital and Ocean Link. Yitiao is an online video content producer and e-commerce start-up, which focuses on lifestyle, fashion and arts.

Suishou, Shenzhen-based fintech startup has secured $200 million in series C round led by KKR. Suishou is a personal finance management platform. They have two apps - personal bookkeeping app Suishouji and fully automated credit card management app Cardniu which have more than 300 million downloads.

Ishangzu, Hangzhou-based apartment rental company has secured $45 million in series B round from Kuka Home and Shenzhen Capital Fortune Investment. It currently manages over 60,000 apartments in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing.

Qingting FM, music radio startup has raised $150 million in series E round led by We Capital and Baidu, Qingting FM is an online audio content platform, covering news, finance, education, and talk show.

Plum, second-hand fashion and luxurious goods trading platform raises $10 million in series A round led by Matrix Partners China, IDG Capital and K2VC.

Shanghai-based VR (Virtual Reality) startup Keyin Technology raises $1.5 million in series A round from Volcanics Ventures and Green Pine Capital Partners. Keyin develops VR solutions for surgeries, clinical analysis, and rehabilitation training.

(Stay tuned to get updates on funding and other trends on the Chinese startup ecosystem. Entrackr brings you to the latest funding updates from India and China)