Hotel group light living completes tens of millions of dollars in Series B financing

On March 19, the hotel group focused on the stock hotel chain has recently completed tens of millions of dollars in Series B financing, led jointly by GGV Jiyuan Capital and Sofina Group. Old shareholders Sequoia China and XVC continued to invest. It is reported that this round of financing funds will be used for the expansion of multi-brand stores and product research and development innovation.

Qingzhu was established in January 2019, and within three months of its establishment, it completed three rounds of financing with a total of tens of millions of dollars. Investors include source capital, XVC, Sequoia China, etc.

The company's investigation data show that the main business of Qingzhu is to achieve the chaining of individual hotels through the way of joining franchise. Through all-round empowerment of brands, operations, and systems, it can help hotels improve their operating efficiency and increase their revenue. The company originated from the original Meituan incubation project and is currently spun off from Meituan and developed independently. At present, there are more than 3,000 hotels signed for cooperation in light living. The first-tier, new first-tier cities and second-tier cities in the country have achieved 100% coverage. Most of the third-tier covers, and they will continue to penetrate the fourth-tier and fifth-tier cities.

For this round of light living financing, founder and CEO Zhao Nan said that financing only solves the funding problem in business exploration, not the purpose, nor milestone, and will invest more energy in business exploration, team building, innovation and research and development. And so on. As a one-year-old startup company, light living still has a big gap compared with leading hotel chains, and it needs continuous learning and growth.

Fu Jixun, managing partner of GGV Jiyuan Capital, said that the hotel chain rate in China is less than 20%, and branding is an inevitable trend. The traditional franchise model of the hotel brand is not suitable for small and medium-sized individual hotels, especially in the current environment of rising property rental costs. Therefore, the light franchise mode enabled by light living technology has been welcomed by the owners, and more than 3,000 hotels have been signed in one year. This is a traditional hotel brand that takes more than 10 years to achieve. Although recently affected by the epidemic, we believe Qingzhao CEO, Zhao Nan, can survive the crisis and become a new generation of high-quality hotel brands.

Lu Xiaotian, senior investment manager of Sofina Group, said that in recent years, the trend of online traffic in China's hotel industry has been obvious. At the same time, in the context of slowing market growth and excess supply, a large number of individual hotels have a significant impact on branding and professional operations. Demand is increasing. Qingzhu provides a set of personalized solutions with data-driven and professional services as the core, which solves the online and offline pain points of individual hotels and helps owners to improve returns under reasonable investment. We believe that the light-living mode of light living has been certified by the market, and after the epidemic is over, it will become the leading brand in this market with the excellent execution of the team.