Rumor: Shopping Guide Koudai.com Lands Second-Round Funding
Sina Tech, 1/04/13
According to Sina Tech, Beijing Aiwei Geili Information Technology, the operator of shopping guide Koudai Gouwu (Koudai.com), recently completed a second round of funding for an undisclosed sum. Aiwei Geili declined to comment on the matter.
Beijing Aiwei Geili was founded by former engineers and product designers from Chinese internet company Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), internet and mobile services firm Tencent (0700.HK), internet company Sina (Nasdaq: SINA), and Hangzhou-based C2C & B2C e-commerce site Taobao. Headquartered in Beijing, the company is managed by CEO Wang Ke and Chairman Hou Xun, with editing and operations teams in Xiamen and Hangzhou.
In contrast to shopping experience sharing SNSs Mogujie and Meilishuo, Koudai Gouwu serves primarily as a mobile shopping guide as opposed to a PC-focused tool. The Koudai Gouwu app currently has more than 10 mln users.
The company has also released a "Koudai price comparison" browser plug-in, which is used to suggest various items to online shoppers.
The majority of Koudai.com revenue comes from sales commissions.
Editor's Note: Meilishuo and Mogujie first launched web versions of their products and subsequently introduced mobile apps. In contrast, Koudai first developed a mobile app and later launched a web version of its shopping guide. As a result, Koudai developer Aiwei Geili is usually referred to as a mobile app developer in Chinese news media and the Koudai mobile app has a larger user base than its PC version, but Koudai essentially offers the same types of service as Meilishuo and Mogujie. For more information on this topic, please see "M-Commerce Firm Geili Wins USD 12 Mln Funding," MD 4/10/12 issue.
Keywords: Aiwei Geili Hou Xun business model Internet funding second-round Wang Ke Koudai Gouwu online shopping SNS
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