Mar 22, 2022

In last week’s VC news, Xiaomi completed at least two considerable investments in AI and robotic tech, smart projector upstart JMGO bagged $157 million in its latest funding round and more. Hong Kong Plant-Based Pork Meat Startup Secures HK$12 Million For Expansion into the Mainland of China Hong Kong-based startup Good Food Technologies specializing in plant-based pork meat, announced the solidification of a HK$12 million (approx. $1.5 million) seed round led by prominent investment firm, VC Gobi Partners. This is the VC’s first investment into the alternative protein sector, with further participation from LeverVC, DayDayCook and others. An alumni of Hong Kong Science Park’s IncuTech says that over the next two years, the startup will open a Series A round, launch additional products and expand its distribution map, with a particular focus on the U.S., the U.K. and Singapore. About Good Food Founded in 2020, Good Food’s initial product R&D focused on Chinese dim sum. The company says the fattiness of pork is what gives many dumplings their signature flavor and aroma, leading the founders to develop proprietary technology dubbed Aromax, a konjac-based encapsulation technology that mimics the fatty pork flavors. Real Estate Digitalization Firm Blue Wall Obtains 50M Yuan in Series A Financing Blue Wall, a high-tech Chinese firm dedicated to developing the underlying software for the real estate industry, announced it has raised 50 million yuan ($7.86 million) in a Series A financing round. The lead investor was overseas institution Hearst Ventures and co-investors were existing shareholders GGV Capital and Shanghai Xiaomiao Langcheng Investment Management Co, .Ltd. Previously, Blue Wall had received pre-A financing from GGV Capital and ZhenFund. The newly acquired funds are earmarked for product development as the company aspires to construct a full-module, full-cycle digital infrastructure for the real estate industry. About Blue Wall Blue Wall was established in 2019. Its main product is a real estate ERP product named Julius which serves as a tool for project management, multi-party collaboration and an underlying database for the real estate industry. The company is also building a cloud-native product system with technologies such as microservice frameworks, containerized packaging and DevOps, and provides enterprises with the ability to customize forms, processes and reports through a low-code design engine. Invests in AI Company Aibee Aibee, a company focused on applying digitalized and intelligent AI solutions to the physical world, announced that it has completed a new round of strategic investment led by  Xiaomi and followed by China Merchants Capital. In January 2018, Aibee completed an angel round of financing totaling 165 million yuan ($26 million) from China Growth Capital. About Aibee Founded in November 2017, Aibee took the lead in advocating the “OOO” (Offline Online One-world) AI solution in China, and positioned itself as the “Offline-Online-Connector.” It integrated AI technologies such as computer vision, big data analysis and robotics to help offline stores implement intelligent operations and management systems. SaaS Firm ELS Technology Secures 100M Yuan in C2 Financing Shenzhen ELS Technology Co., Ltd., a software-as-a-service (SaaS) network platform based in China, announced it has raised more than 100 million yuan ($15.8 million) in a C2 round of financing, less than half a year after its last round. The co-investors in this deal were Meridian Capital and V Fund. The funds are intended for the strengthening of product development and service investment, improving the business scenarios of procurement digitalization and supply chain management, in addition to adding more intelligent AI applications and attracting talent. About ELS Technology ELS Technology is a general-use procurement digital SaaS enterprise established in October 2014. It has served thousands of clients in the procurement industry, including many Fortune 500 companies. Smart Projector Firm JMGO Secures $157M in Financing JMGO, a smart projector brand, has secured 1 billion yuan ($157 million) in new financing. Co-investors included OPPO, IDG and Lexun Tiancheng. Fangchuang Capital was the exclusive financial adviser. The funds are intended to be used as working capital to support the expansion of JMGO’s business scale, and to invest in key strategic businesses such as technology reserves, product development, channel expansion and brand promotion. About JMGO JMGO was founded in Shenzhen in 2011, specializing in the field of smart projectors. JMGO started out from smart home projectors, releasing several product lines including the G series for household use, P series for portable use, J series for household performance, U series for high-end laser TVs, and the O series for wall or projection surfaces, and many others. In 2020, JMGO launched its own “LUNA” operating system. Ninetech Bags Tens of Millions of Yuan in Round-A Financing Ninetech, an RPA (robotic process automation) solutions provider based in China, has secured tens of millions of yuan in a round A of financing led by Qingsong Fund and followed by Jinshajiang Venture Capital. Yuanhe Capital acted as the financial advisor for the deal. The new funds will reportedly be used to upgrade the firm’s products and expand its team. In terms of technology, Ninetech has nearly 20 intellectual property rights, and its agile application platform has supported mainstream domestic operating systems and office software. The company’s products have also been applied in many domestic IT industry manufacturers such as Kirin, Kunpeng, Phytium, WPS and Huawei Cloud. About Ninetech Ninetech’s official website shows that it was jointly established in 2020 by China Merchants Group (CMG) and Jinshajiang Venture Capital. It was originally an innovative RPA + AI project initiated by the fintech subsidiary of CMG. Since its establishment, the company has been focusing on building an agile, enterprise-level application platform while providing digital transformation and upgrading solutions for large state-owned enterprises and other major firms. Hutt Completes Round-A Financing Led by Xiaomi Cleaning robot maker Hutt has completed a round-A of financing worth tens of millions of yuan, jointly led by Xiaomi and Shunwei Capital, with Leap Capital serving as the exclusive financial adviser. The funds will be used for marketing and FAE team expansion, increasing capacity and R&D. Hutt’s annual sales reached several hundred million yuan in 2021, of which overseas markets contributed 65%. The company has rolled out on domestic mainstream online channels such as JD.com Youpin. About Hutt Hutt was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Beijing. The company focuses on providing vertical surface cleaning solutions for the home. At present, Hutt’s main product is a window cleaning robot, which the firm says has three core selling points: a thin and light body, wet cleaning and speed. MeetFuture Completes Round-B Financing Worth Several Hundred Million Yuan MeetFuture, a leading Chinese semiconductor equipment supplier focused on automated material handling systems (AMHS), announced that it has completed a round-B of financing worth several hundred million yuan. This round was led by Genertec Investment, followed by Haitong Innovative Securities Investment and Bojiang Capital. Qiming Venture Partners, the lead investor of the firm’s A round of financing, continued to increase its investment. Funds from this round will be used for R&D, production and overseas market expansion. Among them, a wholly-owned subsidiary of MeetFuture in Singapore has become operational in Q4 2021, and its first batch of products will be supplied to local 12-inch fab customers this year. About MeetFuture Founded in November 2014, MeetFuture is a supplier of semiconductor parts and equipment and is headquartered in Shanghai. It focuses on the production, R&D and sale of AMHS, which is often used in semiconductor fabrication plants. Its products include more than 10 AMHS hardware devices such as transfer equipment, wafer cassettes, mask package storage equipment, purification equipment and Material Control Systems (MCS).