Meituan-Dianping lands US$4bn, and Priceline is in

Meituan-Dianping has raised US$4 billion in its Series C financing round led by Chinese Internet giant Tencent and which saw The Priceline Group come in as a new investor.

With the new funding, Meituan-Dianping intends to strengthen the positions of its four core business groups (Travel & Leisure, In-Store Dining, Lifestyle & Entertainment and On-Demand Delivery) as well as its newer diversified lines.

Commented Wang Xing, CEO of Meituan-Dianping: “Meituan-Dianping presently has the largest service-focused e-commerce platform in China, but even so, numerous parts of our diversified business are in early stages of growth and the opportunities for further expansion are enormous. We look forward to investing wisely to build out our platform and offerings and to fully leverage AI-based and analytics-driven technology, for the benefit of our consumers and merchant partners.”

Todd Henrich, global head of corporate development of The Priceline Group, said: “Our commercial relationship between Agoda.com and Meituan-Dianping will help each company benefit from the other’s expertise and capitalise on the opportunities presented by China’s exceptionally large travel market.”

Other key investors in the funding round include Sequoia Capital, GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Trustbridge Partners, Coatue Management, IDG Capital, Tiger Global Management, and China-UAE Investment Cooperation Fund.

In the past year, Meituan-Dianping enhanced its Travel & Leisure business group with the launch of a consolidated travel platform, Meituan Travel. It is already China’s second largest hotel reservation platform, according to a Meituan-Dianping statement, having reached 36 per cent market share.

The service-focused e-commerce giant this year also achieved 86 per cent market share for In-Store Dining and 61 per cent for On-Demand Delivery, on top of entering new verticals such as B&B accommodation.

The company stated it will continue to invest in “cutting-edge technology to create innovative solutions and drive efficiencies for local businesses”, as well as focus on expanding into “key target verticals with high potential and that complement the company’s existing services”.

Launched in 2015, Meituan-Dianping today connects more than 280 million annual active buying consumers with more than five million annual active local merchants across China.

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