Consumer Staples Author：Yijuan Li Editor：Yijuan Li Apr 14, 2022 02:30 PM (GMT+8)

As the Chinese low-alcohol market booms, brands mushroom and flourish

fruit wine

Chinese winemaker Greater or Equal to 9 (Chinese: 大于等于九) has netted CNY 100 million (USD 15.706 million) in its Series A financing round, led by Centurium Capital (Chinese: 大钲资本).

The proceeds will be used primarily in brand building, sales channel development, and marketing.

Established in 2021, the brand has relied on restaurants, bars, convenience stores, and other sales channels to provide young consumers with trendy drinks. Greater or Equal to 9 boasts over 40,000 outlets.

The company has also focused on flavors, owning an independent R&D lab. Wang Ju, the brand's co-founder, openly said they want to find a good recipe at all cost and think about mass production and profits after that. As a result, the firm chose European wine or brandy as the base liquor.

The startup grows amid a rising low-alcohol market. The year 2021 witnessed 56 financing events worth CNY 2500 million in the sector, involving players such as JOJO (Chinese: JOJO起泡酒), Mizzing (Chinese: Mizzing满赞), and MissBerry (Chinese: MissBerry贝瑞甜心). Tianyancha statistics showed over 830 new companies in this sector registered in 2022 as of March 2.

Financing events Alcoholic beverages