China-based online grocery delivery service Dada-JD Daojia has raised $500m in a funding round that included a $320m investment by big-box retailer Walmart, Reuters reported today.
E-commerce firm and existing investor JD.com supplied the rest of the funding. The round comes after Walmart invested $50m in Dada-JD Daojia in late 2016 as part of a cooperation agreement.
Dada-JD Daojia comprises two companies: crowdsourced last-mile delivery service Dada and JD Daojia, which offers one-hour delivery of items which can be ordered online from more than 100,000 partner retailers.
The platform’s partners include 200 Chinese branches of Walmart across 30 cities, and Walmart opened a specialist store in the city of Shenzhen earlier this year designed to cater specifically for customers on JD Daojia.
Walmart paid a reported $1.5bn for a 5% stake in publicly-listed JD.com in 2016 and had built that shareholding up to 12.1% by February 2017.
Jianwen Liao, JD.com’s chief strategy officer, said in a statement quoted by TechCrunch: “The future of global retail is boundaryless. There will be no separation between online and offline shopping, only greater convenience, quality and selection to consumers.
“JD was an early investor in Dada-JD Daojia, and continues its support, because we believe that its innovations will be an important part of realising that vision.”
Dada had raised $300m in a DST Global and Sequoia Capital-backed round in early 2016, before merging with Daojia in a May 2016 deal in which JD.com took a 47.4% stake by investing $200m and transferring certain assets.
JD.com, Macquarie Capital, Morningside Ventures and CDH Venture had invested $50m in Daojia in 2014. Fast food retailer Yum China reportedly acquired a majority stake in Daojia in May 2017 but it is unclear how much of the company it, or JD.com, currently owns.