Food delivery service Daojia raises $50M in funding led by JD.com

Online food delivery service Daojia.com announced that it has closed $50 million in Series D financing jointly led by JD.com and Macquarie. (source via Sina) This deal marked JD’s second capital injection in Daojia, which received an undisclosed amount of financing in Series C round one year earlier.

The funding will be used in R&D, expansion into new cities, and construction of delivery team, according to the company.

Founded in 2010, Daojia differentiates itself from other competitors with a special focus on urban medium- and high-tier users, and it has constructed an in-house delivery team.

The company’s data shows that Daojia has nearly 1 million users now, operating in eight cities across the country, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, etc., up from only two cities one year earlier. In the past one-year period, its restaurant partners nearly doubled to more than 3,000 from 1,800 in September last year, while the number of deliverymen climbed from more than 500 to 1,000.

Sun Hao, founder of Daojia, said they plan to continue the expansion, aiming to operate in 20 to 30 cities by the end of 2015.

Similar food ordering and delivery service Ele.me and Etaoshi also received different amount of funding. Moreover, Chinese leading rating and review service Dianping and Alibaba also added food delivery services to tap this market.

This story originally appeared on TechNode. Copyright 2014