Baidu's food delivery service Waimai looking to raise $500m: Report

The O2O food delivery market is increasingly looking like the next front in China's tech titan battle, reports Tech in Asia

China’s O2O food delivery sector is apparently still in the cash-burning phase. In late summer, Chinese O2O food delivery start-up Ele.me raised a $630 million series F round, and now Baidu’s O2O food delivery subsidiary Baidu Waimai is reportedly looking to do the same. Sina Tech reported on Tuesday that the company began a search for capital in November and aims to close the round next month. Supposedly, it’s looking to raise $300 to $500 million.

Baidu declined to comment on the Chinese media report. Tech in Asia has also contacted Baidu for comment (we like to double-check) but the company again declined.
 

Reportedly, Baidu plans to use the biggest chunk of the incoming investment capital (40%) on improving its platform. Smaller chunks (20% each) will go to product development, new category expansion, and marketing.
 

Information about the planned round comes from a leaked Baidu planning document. Tech in Asia has not seen and cannot verify the authenticity of the document, but it reportedly also contains details about Baidu Waimai’s performance. For example, the document suggests that Baidu Waimai did RMB 8 billion ($1.2 billion) in transactions this year, and that its target for 2016 is a total transaction volume of over RMB 25 billion ($3.8 billion). It also says that the service has about 11 million monthly active users on mobile.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.