Legend Capital has led a RMB580 million (US$87 million) series B round in Aikucun, an online platform that connects fashion brands and professional online shoppers to help brands reduce their inventories.
Eastern Bell Venture Capital and state-owned conglomerate investment enterprise C&D Corp Ltd., also participated in the round, according to Aikucun’s announcement.
Launched in 2017, Aikucun is an online distribution platform. Aikucun helps fashion brands to connect with online shoppers, who usually promote and sell their goods on Tencent’s social media app WeChat. Aikucun takes care of product pictures, product descriptions, and other marketing materials as well as after-sale service. Online shoppers share the product information on their WeChat and maintain customer relationship.
The firm said it has partnered with about 100,000 shopping agents and more than 1,000 brands. Its gross merchandise value (GMV) has reached RMB100 million in May.
"WeChat’s ecosystem has brought a lot of new business opportunities," said Tony Wang, executive director at Legend Capital, "Aikucun has captured the real market needs to help brands reduce their inventories, and share profits with online shoppers and provide customers with good-quality goods with low prices"
Proceeds of this round will be used for expanding its team and R&D and improving it service capacity.
In January, Aikucun received a RMB100 million (US$15 million) series A round led by Eastern Bell Venture Capital.
