The cross-border IPO market is still “crazy”!

In the public opinion, 2022 is called the most difficult year by many cross-border people! However, the crazy influx of capital hot money once again proves that cross-border e-commerce is still popular!

In the past five years, the number of registered cross-border e-commerce companies in China has shown an overall upward trend year by year. In 2021, there were 10,900 new companies, a year-on-year increase of 72.2%. In addition to the sharp increase in the number of new sellers, the amount of financing in China's export cross-border e-commerce industry in 2021 was also very impressive. 21 cross-border companies including Cider, PatPat, Quanliang Quansu, WOOK, Lilysilk, YESBEE, Tospino, Vanhai VANGO, Xike, OnePro, POVISON, Wudi Industry, and Gandu Auto Parts received financing, with a total financing amount of more than 7.36 billion yuan.

In 2022, although the number of new sellers has declined and the amount of financing has declined, cross-border e-commerce still has a good performance in many industries. According to incomplete statistics from the editor, more than 10 cross-border companies in the fields of home appliances, 3C digital electronics, pets, clothing, etc. have obtained capital financing.

An industry insider said that cross-border e-commerce shortens the trade chain and essentially improves cross-border retail efficiency. The race is long and arduous, and he is firmly optimistic about the long-term opportunities in the cross-border e-commerce industry.

Next, follow the editor to review the financing situation announced by 10 cross-border export sellers in 2022 (BloomChic, Jika Technology, CIARRA, Furbulous, Zhengniao Overseas, Newme, Wujiang Cross-border, Jianghai Technology, Qpendo, and Sujing), and try to capture new opportunities from capital trends and seller layout!

Three more big sellers in the home furnishing sector raised funds

Home furnishings are closely related to people's lives, and people's yearning for a better life makes the home furnishing economy flourish. In the era of the Internet of Everything, smart home products are becoming a new consumption trend ! As a major exporter of goods, China has many home furnishing sellers that have quietly emerged, and their products are hot-selling overseas, such as the cross-border seller Zhiou, which is about to go public. In 2022, Newme, Zhengniao Chuhai and Jika Technology, which are also in the home furnishing track, have received capital favor and have successfully raised funds.

1. In January 2022 , Zhengniao Chuhai received a strategic investment of RMB 100 million.

On January 10, 2022, Shenzhen Zhengniao Chuhai Technology Co., Ltd. received a strategic investment of RMB 100 million from Insai Group . This is the second round of financing that Zhengniao has received in less than half a year. On August 11, 2021, Zhengniao Chuhai just received a round A financing of hundreds of millions of RMB .

Founded on April 2, 2020, Zhengniao Chuhai is a cross-border e-commerce company that mainly engages in cross-border export B2C business. It owns multiple stores on platforms such as Amazon, eBay, Wish, AliExpress, etc. It has dozens of brands in categories such as home life, sports, outdoor, 3C electronics, and pets, and many brands have entered the TOP10 of the platform categories .

Although Zhengniao Chuhai operates multiple categories, household products are the main profit force. Its net profit in 2021 reached 53.7 million yuan. In the financial data for the first nine months of 2021 released by Zhengniao Chuhai, the editor found that the largest contribution to Zhengniao Chuhai's revenue was household goods, accounting for more than 70%, followed by sports and outdoor categories accounting for 10.34%, and finally beauty and musical instruments accounting for 5.84%.

2. In February 2022, Newme completed millions of dollars in angel+ round financing.

In February this year , DTC (Direct to Consumer) home furnishing brand Newme announced the completion of a multi-million dollar angel+ round of financing, with Huaying Capital as the investor. This round of financing will be used for supply chain R&D and management, brand building and other businesses.

In less than half a year, Newme has successfully raised funds three times. The first two were a seed round of financing of millions of RMB in October 2021 and an angel round of financing of millions of US dollars in November 2021.

Founded in November 2020, Newme is a new home furnishing e-commerce company targeting young people in North America. It focuses on promoting products through TikTok channels, using independent websites and Amazon stores as the main conversion platforms. The supply chain further defines new products through self-research and package payment methods to create a DTC home furnishing brand. The main products include lamps, small kitchen appliances, small bathroom appliances, and power tools, etc., and are positioned in the home furnishing category with a customer unit price of US$30-100, with people with home furnishing needs in the European and American markets as the target user group.

It is understood that one of Newme's learning goals is the cross-border e-commerce platform SHEIN. The main sales channels currently include independent sites and TikTok stores, and Amazon channels are also under preparation.

According to Newme co-founder Gu Jun, TikTok has become the key to GMV growth , of which 95% comes from short videos on the platform and the remaining 5% comes from live broadcasts. As Newme's business on the TikTok platform matures, the platform will gradually transform from a sales channel for Newme to a grass-growing channel, playing a role similar to Xiaohongshu. In addition, the independent station channel has also developed rapidly. After the independent station went online in March 2021 , the website's monthly GMV increased by more than 100% month-on-month.

3. In May 2022, Jika Technology completed a round A financing of tens of millions of dollars.

In May 2022, the smart home overseas brand Jika Technology completed a tens of millions of dollars in Series A financing. This round of financing was led by NBT Capital, followed by Challenger Capital, and Media Asia Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.

Founded in 2016, Jika Technology is a smart home brand that has two series of brands, EmersonQuietKool and GEEK. Its main markets include the United States, Canada, Australia and India. GEEK is a brand independently created by the company, mainly engaged in smart security, smart home and small appliances product lines; EmersonQuietKool is an air conditioning brand with more than 70 years of history in the United States. It was acquired by Jika Technology and mainly operates air conditioning product lines.

According to the company, the product sales path of Jika Technology is "online and offline at the same time", that is, online and offline releases at the same time. Among them, online sales channels include Amazon, Walmart and DTC websites. In 2021, its rechargeable fans, air ovens and other products ranked top three in Amazon's vertical categories. The company has also built offline distribution channels in North America, Europe, Australia and India, including chain home appliance stores, dealers, etc. According to data provided by the company, Jika Technology's annual exports in 2021 increased by 60% year-on-year, and it has been profitable historically.

Relevant data show that from 2017 to 2020, the compound annual growth rate of the global household goods market size is 1.12%. In the future, global household goods consumer demand is expected to maintain steady growth and reach US$851.984 billion in 2025. Europe and the United States occupy an important position in the global household goods market. According to the data of China Business Industry Research Institute, Europe is the region with the largest household goods market in the world, with a market size of US$212.765 billion in 2020; the United States ranks second, with a household goods market size of US$180.054 billion in 2020.

In the era of science and technology, the trend of smart home consumption is becoming more and more obvious. According to third-party data, the scale of the global smart home market will reach US$115.7 billion in 2022, and the market scale will increase to US$195.2 billion in 2026, with a growth rate of 13.97% from 2022 to 2026. Global comparisons show that most smart home consumption comes from the United States, with smart home sales in the United States reaching US$31.45 billion in 2022. In addition, the penetration rate of smart homes is also increasing. Data shows that by 2022, the global smart home household penetration rate will reach 14.2%, and it is expected to increase to 25.0% by 2026.

"Evergreen" hot-selling products, the trend of segmentation is becoming more and more obvious

Clothing, jewelry accessories, and daily necessities, as hot-selling "evergreens", have always dominated the sales of major e-commerce platforms. This also means that the competition in this category is very fierce. However, there are still many sellers who carry out segmented and differentiated positioning, identify the needs of the crowd, make breakthroughs in a single point, and successfully occupy a place in each track.

4. Wujiang Cross-border received three rounds of financing in one year, and fast fashion cross-border DTC is still very popular!

In March 2022, the fast fashion cross-border DTC brand BOUNDLESS announced that it had completed a Pre-A round of financing of nearly US$5 million last year. This round of financing was led by BAI Capital, and old shareholders Kuanzhai Venture Capital and 13 Capital followed suit. It is reported that this round of financing is the third round of financing completed by BOUNDLESS, which was established less than a year ago. Previously, it received two rounds of investment of tens of millions of RMB from 13 Capital, Kuanzhai Venture Capital and Frees Capital.

Founded in 2021 and located in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, Wujiang Cross-border is a fast fashion brand e-commerce company that focuses on fast fashion categories such as jewelry accessories, and has created its own brand. It is committed to the industry sales model of its own brand DTC cross-border, creating an online shopping experience, and selling Chinese products to markets such as Europe, North America and Latin America.

At present, the company owns three independent brands of non-standard products, including Jouer, 404 and R!CH, covering categories such as clothing, accessories, and 3C accessories . It is reported that Jouer is a brand specially created for young women who pursue fashion, while 404 is mainly aimed at pioneers who pursue "non-mainstream culture", and R!CH is dedicated to serving black people or consumers who love black culture. In addition, the main source of revenue for Wujiang Cross-border in the early stage is to make profits through self-operated sales, and in the future it will consider gradually opening up to brands.

5. The son of the founder of Metersbonwe goes overseas, and BloomChic targets the plus-size women's clothing economy.

In December 2022, BloomChic, a plus-size women's clothing brand founded by Bill Hu, son of Metersbonwe founder Zhou Chengjian, recently received investment from global consumer investment company L Catterton, which is also its third round of financing. Previously, the company had received support from star capitals such as Mingshi Capital, 5Y Capital, Oasis Capital, and Wanwu Capital.

Founded in 2020, BloomChic is a D2C brand focusing on the overseas plus-size women's clothing market . Starting from the North American market, it has built cross-border e-commerce services overseas. It is affiliated to Guangzhou Shenyi Information Technology Co., Ltd. BloomChic is committed to providing plus-size women with a wide range of fashionable, fitted and comfortable clothing at affordable prices. It has become a brand that resonates with plus-size people in the minds of consumers, has a highly inclusive brand personality, and is committed to empowering women.

It is understood that BloomChic has a precise portrait positioning of its core users and has gained followers by establishing clear communities on multiple social media platforms.

6. Vipshop invested and daily necessities brand Qpendo completed strategic financing.

On September 22, 2022, Qpendo, a cross-border e-commerce brand overseas enterprise, announced the completion of strategic financing, with Vipshop as the investor, and the amount was not disclosed. This round of funds will be mainly used for further improvement of brand upgrades, global market advertising, and supply chain warehousing. This is also one of the few cross-border e-commerce moves by Vipshop in recent years.

Qpendo was founded in 2022. Its legal representative is Wang Hongbo. Its corporate name is Shenzhen Qulepin Information Technology Co., Ltd. It is a brand overseas company that provides high-frequency daily necessities for young and fashionable women aged 18-35 in the global market. It has currently conducted business in mainstream overseas markets such as North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea, covering more than 100 countries and regions. Its goal is to provide global buyers with a preferred platform to reach high-quality Chinese brands and to provide Chinese sellers with an efficient overseas channel.

When talking about the reason for targeting the daily necessities category, Qpendo mentioned three attributes of it: first, the high profits of long-tail products; second, the high repurchase rate; and third, the low shopping pressure brought about by the low average order value.

Smart products are sweeping the fitness, kitchen appliances, pet supplies and other categories, and sellers are riding the wave

The era of Made in China is gradually transitioning to the era of Smart Manufacturing! Focusing on the intelligent development of products, batches of excellent players in various segments have taken off. In addition to the smart home overseas brands mentioned above, Sujing, CIARRA, Furbulous and Jianghai Technology have also achieved remarkable results.

7. In the era of global fitness, Sujing completed Pre-A round of financing of over RMB 10 million

According to Qichacha, on October 31, 2022, the smart fitness company Shenzhen Sujing Life Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Sujing") obtained strategic financing, which is the second financing it has obtained this year. In March 2022, Sujing announced the completion of a Pre-A round of financing of more than 10 million yuan. This round of financing was led by Frees Capital and followed by Weiyi Capital. The funds will be mainly used for product mass production, market expansion and team building.

On December 29, 2020, Sujing was established in Shenzhen. It is a fitness brand that is committed to creating smart home fitness equipment with strength training as the core through the "hardware + content + AI private training + community" model, with hardware as the basis and operational content as the core.

The editor learned that Sujing's main smart fitness product, "one machine for whole body training", has the following characteristics: First, it takes up little space, covering an area of ​​0.3 m², and is foldable; second, the training is intelligent, with a built-in AI intelligent system to record data and customize courses.

At the end of 2021, its first product was launched on the overseas crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, with an average price of US$2,100 and a crowdfunding amount of nearly US$600,000, becoming the only digital strength fitness product on the platform. Currently, Speed ​​has opened an independent website SPEEDIANCE overseas.

As of 23:59 on October 31, 2022, SPEEDIANCE ranked first in total sales and sales of comprehensive strength training devices on all platforms. The sales of SPEEDIANCE GYM MONSTER S1 products exceeded 1 million yuan in 30 minutes.

Relevant data show that the fitness market has two characteristics: "high overseas stock and high growth in China". Europe and the United States are the world's largest fitness markets, with a scale of more than 50 billion US dollars. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and a large number of gyms were closed. At this time, home fitness equipment brands represented by Peloton and Tonal quickly stood out and led the industry revolution. In the field of fitness, the intelligentization of fitness equipment is the general trend. Developed countries generally have a large number of fitness populations. The paid fitness penetration rate in the United States has reached 31.1%. There is a large demand for smart fitness products and the market is mature.

8. CIARRA completed a round A financing of tens of millions of RMB.

In September 2022, CIARRA completed a round A financing of tens of millions of RMB. This round of financing will be mainly used for product category expansion, supply chain digital upgrades and brand operations.

CIARRA was founded in Foshan, Guangdong in 2016. It is a smart high-end kitchen appliance brand! At the beginning of its establishment, CIARRA decided to build differentiated competitive barriers in terms of product performance, price and service methods. After 6 years of development, it has now become the top kitchen appliance brand on Amazon Europe.

A report shows that by 2027, the global smart kitchen appliance market is expected to reach $39.9 billion, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 19.1% during the forecast period, with huge market potential. The European kitchen appliance market is one of the most promising regions in the world. According to public data, the European kitchen appliance market accounts for 35% of the global market.

This is also the reason why CIARRA focuses on the European market, but it also stated that other markets are also worth exploring, and it will enter the North American and Southeast Asian markets next.

9. Focusing on smart pet products, Furbulous received millions of dollars in angel round financing.

On August 11, 2022 , the D2C overseas brand "Furbulous" announced the completion of a multi-million dollar angel round of financing, led by Xiangfeng K2VC and followed by Renren Games. It is understood that the funds from this round of financing will be used for product research and development, supply chain construction and brand building.

Furbulous is a pet overseas brand supplier, mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of outdoor smart pet products. It also provides smart cat toilets, water dispensers, feeders, locators and other products, and is committed to providing users with relevant pet products and services.

It is understood that Furbulous' first self-developed product is a smart cat toilet, which was put into mass production in the fourth quarter of this year. Currently, the main problems of smart cat toilets on the market are that the feces collection box is prone to mold after a long period of time, pet owners need to manually pack and discard, and changing litter is troublesome. The optimization of Furbulous smart cat toilet lies in that it uses technology migration to overcome the problem of automatic cat litter packaging and the pain point of packing and dumping litter, and protects the health of pets and pet owners by ensuring the cleanliness of the cat toilet interior and the cleaning process.

In terms of future product line plans, the founder team of Furbulous said that the company will continue to optimize the technology of smart cat toilets; in addition, related products such as smart water dispensers, feeders, and locators are also in the process of research and development. In terms of business model, Furbulous will adopt a crowdfunding model in the early stage, and will cover online channels such as independent websites and Amazon, as well as offline cooperation channels in the target market in the future.

10. A home energy storage and energy management company received tens of millions of RMB in A+ round of financing.

On November 28, 2022, Guangzhou Jianghai Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jianghai Technology"), a global home energy storage and energy management company, received tens of millions of RMB in A+ round of financing . On August 29, 2022, it had just completed tens of millions of RMB in A round of strategic financing .

According to public information, Jianghai Technology was established in August 2017. It is a technology company integrating independent research and development, production and sales. Since its establishment, it has been deeply involved in household energy storage, smart home energy management system, portable outdoor power supply, 3C digital and other fields. The company is committed to building the Zendure brand into a world-leading professional charging brand and realizing the mission of "making power ubiquitous".

In conclusion: At present, China's cross-border e-commerce companies are mainly distributed in Guangdong Province. It is in this fertile soil that many cross-border companies have become the darlings of capitalists! From the perspective of capital investment rules, players with branding characteristics are obviously more popular; from the perspective of market rules, cross-border e-commerce is far from saturation, and those companies that focus on differentiated competition are finding their own blue ocean track from the red ocean market.