Awesome! Another cross-border company received nearly 100 million yuan in Series C financing

In recent years, the pet supplies market has continued to be hot, with shipments increasing significantly. As a result, it has attracted widespread attention from capital, and industry financing has also increased significantly.

Horman Technology announced the completion of nearly 100 million RMB in Series C financing

Recently, Horman Technologies Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Horman Technology") announced the completion of nearly RMB 100 million in Series C financing.

It is understood that this round of financing was led by Shenzhen Capital Group, followed by investors such as Li Zexiang and 37 Interactive Entertainment. This round of financing will be used by Horman Technology to further increase product research and development efforts and expand market coverage.

It is worth mentioning that this is not the first round of financing for Horman Technology.

In May 2019, Horman Technology completed a Pre-A financing of RMB 10 million. The investor is Professor Li Zexiang, who is known to have successfully invested in and incubated DJI. This round of financing will be mainly used for Horman Technology's product development and brand building.

Previously, Horman Technology had received two rounds of angel round financing of several million yuan from Cheng Xiaohua, the inventor of the USB flash drive and founder of Netac Technology, and Ruan Xiaoxun, the founder of Esate.

According to public information, Horman Technology was founded in 2015 and is a technology company focusing on smart pet products. The company mainly promotes pet smart ecological products and focuses on the boutique SKU route. It only develops 1-2 products in each category and continuously iterates and upgrades single products. At present, Horman Technology's main products include smart pet feeders, pet water dispensers, smart pet toy donuts, first-class smart cat toilets and smart pet drying boxes.

Many of Horman Technology's products have become popular products in the market. Among them, the cumulative sales of smart water dispensers have exceeded 500,000 units, and have topped the Tmall pet high-end water dispenser sales list many times. Horman's smart pet drying box quickly became popular after its launch, with cumulative sales of nearly one million units. Horman's smart feeder is also widely recognized by consumers and has been ranked top 1 in sales on major e-commerce platforms for many years.

Since April 2016, Horman has started to expand its overseas markets.

After 8 years of development, Horman's products are sold well in more than 30 countries and regions around the world, including China, the United States, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, etc.

As of 2022, Horman Technology's total online sales have exceeded 200 million yuan, and Horman has become a major pet brand on e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, JD.com, and Douyin.

At the same time, Horman Technology has also reached cooperation with 2,350 retailers in 197 cities in China, and signed cooperation agreements with 42 leading distributors in the industry. In addition, Horman Technology has launched crowdfunding activities in Taiwan, China, Japan and other places many times, becoming one of the largest pet projects on the crowdfunding platform.

Despite the sluggish market environment in the past few years, Horman Technology's performance has continued to grow rapidly and remains at the leading level in the industry.

Horman Technology's recognition by consumers in the global market is inseparable from its strong product strength and technological advantages.

Hörman Technology can independently complete the research and development of the entire process of structure, software and hardware, process, components, etc. of all its products on a daily basis. As of March 2023, Hörman Technology has obtained 146 domestic patents and 33 overseas patents, and has leading R&D capabilities.

It is worth mentioning that Liu Kun, the founder and CEO of Horman Technology, holds a master's degree in automatic control from Harbin Institute of Technology. He first worked in R&D and project management at Toshiba, Mindray Medical, and the century-old German company IKA. In addition, the core members of Horman Technology come from Mindray, a leading company in precision medical instruments, and have R&D experience and advantages. Currently, there are 125 R&D engineers, and the annual R&D investment ratio exceeds 50%.

As the pet supplies market is experiencing rapid growth, more and more companies are entering the market. For Horman Technology, how to maintain its competitive advantage in the market is also a topic that must be faced.

The global pet market is experiencing rapid development, and a strong rival to Amazon has emerged!

In recent years, the global pet market has experienced rapid development.  

According to the latest survey data released by Bloomberg BI, the current market value of the global pet industry is US$320 billion, and it is expected that this figure will reach US$493 billion by 2030, a significant increase of 54%.

As a country with the highest pet ownership rate in the world, the United States has an extremely rapid growth in the market size of its pet industry.

According to statistics released by APPA (American Pet Industry Association), in the past two years, the United States has added approximately 9 million pet dogs and 5 million pet cats, and more than 70% of American households already own pets.

The United States will continue to be the largest pet market, with sales of pet products expected to grow from $128.6 billion to $195.6 billion by 2030.

Many companies have also set their sights on this high-growth, high-profit, high-potential track and are actively accelerating their exploration of the blue ocean market. Many sellers have set their sights on the United States as their target market.

After entering the US market, pet product sellers often choose Amazon as their first choice of e-commerce platform, as Amazon accounts for about 40% of the US e-commerce market. However, in recent years, another e-commerce platform, Chewy, has emerged strongly and is competing fiercely with Amazon in the fiercely competitive US pet market. It is reported that Chewy's market share in the US pet e-commerce market has reached 50%.

Chewy is the largest pet product e-commerce platform in the United States. Currently, there are more than 2,000 pet partner brands and 70,000 SKUs on the Chewy platform. It is also constantly developing its own brands to provide customers with diversified and high-quality services.

According to the first quarter 2023 financial report data released by Chewy, Chewy's sales in the quarter reached US$2.78 billion, and its gross profit margin reached 28.4%, an increase of 14.7%, which is a very rapid growth.

Compared with traditional e-commerce platforms, Chewy itself has very big advantages.

First of all, Chewy's Autoship subscription (automatic subscription model) allows consumers to enjoy regular pet supply delivery services, and customers who subscribe to Autoship can enjoy discounts of 5%-35%.

Secondly, Chewy’s CarePlus service offers medical plans starting at US$20 per month, providing a full-chain pet ecosystem medical service to meet different medical needs.

Thirdly, Chewy attaches great importance to consumers' shopping experience, providing "24/7 mode" customer service around the clock, and will mail handwritten envelopes and cards to pet owners. Purchases made on the platform can be returned for free, or there is no need to return the products. Customers only need to donate the products to pet shelters.

In general, the global pet market is developing in a positive direction. With the development of the market and the continuous increase in consumer demand, pet products are also moving towards a more intelligent and professional direction.

For sellers who have already entered the pet supplies market, if they want to achieve long-term development in overseas markets, they must focus on their own products, build their own market competitiveness in multiple aspects such as brand and channels, and seize current development opportunities.

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