Though the Chinese venture capital market has been clouded by the pandemic, new retail ventures are still catching investors' interest.
The new retail company, KK Group, has completed a new round of financing of CNY 1 billion, led by CMC Capital. Founded in 2014, the company adopts the ‘e-commerce + physical store’ model and sells imported Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) such as snacks, beauty and skincare.
KK Group runs three brands, including KK Pavilion, KKV and THE COLORIST. ‘KKV’ focuses on home furnishing, while THE COLORIST aims at fashion makeup. The firm has opened hundreds of offline stores in more than 100 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Wuhan.
Targeting young customers, the KK Group upgrades products regularly to capture trends through data-driven technology, bringing more traffic and higher revenues. Offline stores recorded millions of yuan of sales monthly. In terms of online performance, it soared 1500% year-on-year during the epidemic.
According to the latest report, ‘global retail-technology companies’ released by CB Insights, KK Group was one of the 31 unicorns. Besides, the firm closed a Series D financing of CNY 700 million, the most massive single funding in the new retail industry in 2019.