China Based Food Delivery Start Up Receives Shot in the Arm with Tencent Funding

Line0, a China-based start-up offering food delivery services has recently managed to secure funding from Tencent – one of the largest internet conglomerates in China. On the brink of pocketing a whopping US$ 30 million via funding, the start-up says that it will now implement major plans for expansion over the next couple of years. William Wu, the founder and CEO of Line0 has stated that his plans include taking advantage of the latest trends in the booming market for online orders and delivery.

The trend is much stronger among younger consumers who are comfortable with simply logging on to food ordering portals and choosing their takeaway order. The demand for takeaways has been rising over the years, remarked Wu. However, the weak point in this industry, in the Chinese context, is that small and medium enterprises do not have the required infrastructure to build their own delivery systems. And the giants, on the other hand, prefer not to invest in this process either. Wu considers this to be an opportunity that can be taken advantage of.

He also said that his start-up would consider looking at location-based services that operate on the offline-to-offline platform. Consumers in China, according to Wu, are showing an inclination for online services and food ordering apps.

Tencent is not the only company to have pumped money into Line0. 2012, Gobi Partners had funded the start-up, whereas in 2014, the firm raised money from Sequoia Capital. Line0 currently runs operations in five major cities in China – Wuhan, Shenzhen, Nanjing, and Shanghai. Now, with the multimillion dollar investment by Tencent, Line0 wants to set up cutting-edge services such as one-hour delivery in as many as 20 cities in China.