Ele.me

ELEME Inc. is an online food delivery service platform. It was founded in 2008 by Mark Zhang and Jack Kang in Minhang Campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.[1]

ELEME Inc.
TypeSubsidiary
IndustryOnline food delivery
Founded2008 (2008)
FoundersMark Zhang
Jack Kang
HeadquartersShanghai, China
Area served
2000+ cities in China
ParentAlibaba Group
Websiteele.me

In April 2018, Ele.me was acquired by the Alibaba Group and continues to operate independently.[2]

History

Ele.me is an online-to-offline (O2O) catering and food delivery platform in China. Èle me?饿了么？roughly means "Hungry now?" in Chinese. It was founded by Mark Zhang and Jack Kang in Minhang Campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2008 and now is developed and operated by Lazhasi Network Technology (Shanghai) Co., LTD. By the end of December in 2016, Ele.me has covered more than 2000 cities in China, with more than 1.3 million joining shops, 15 thousand staff and more than nine million daily orders. Also, over three million riders have registered Fengniao Delivery (the sub-service of Ele.me).

On 27 January 2015, Ele.me finished its Series E financing with $350 million invested by CITIC PE, Tencent Holdings, JD.com (Joybuy), Hongshan Capital (Sequoia Capital) and Dianping.com.[3] On 28 August 2015, Ele.me announced the completion of its Series F financing with $630 million. The investment was led by CITIC PE and Hualian Group, followed by new investors like China Media Capital (CMC), Gopher Asset as well as the original investors including Tencent Holdings, JD.com (Joybuy) and Hongshan Capital (Sequoia Capital).[4]

On 24 November 2015, Ele.me obtained a strategic investment from Didi Chuxing.[5] On 17 December 2015, Alibaba Group invested $1.25 billion to Ele.me.[6][7]

On 1 March 2017, Ele.me announced that they would launch an app entitled "Food Security Service". Restaurants that are suspected of violating the law will be synced to the supervision department, and this function now covers all the restaurants in Shanghai.[8][9] On 8 March 2017, Ele.me announced that 5,257 restaurants were found to violate the rules and were removed within one week.[10] Additionally, 258 restaurants were removed in Sichuan province.[11]

By 2019, Ele.me had become the largest food delivery service in China with 53.4% market share.[12] At the same time, the company increasingly attracted foreign retailers such as notably German supermarket chain ALDI,[13] expanding beyond pure food delivery to FMCG and grocery delivery as part of Alibaba Group's "New Retail" push.

Union

On 20 April 2017, under the support and guidance of Beijing Food and Drug Administration, major online meal ordering platforms including Ele.me, Meituan Dianping, Baidu Takeaway and Daojia established an online meal ordering platform self-discipline union voluntarily.[14]

The CEOs of the four platforms made a statement and signed the "Self-discipline Convention on Online Takeaway Ordering Platform's Union" together. This convention promised solemnly to the society from 14 aspects including the proprietors’ pre-join promise, platform admission, and the improvement of the records management and information publicity of the proprietors. Its specific contents includes: establishing food security institutes and voluntarily publish information to the society on the homepages of the platforms; tightening the regulation of platform admission; submitting the management data and information to the Food and Drug Administration regularly and actively; taking linked supervision and punitive measures among the platforms, and simultaneously removing the restaurants that violate the rules from all the platforms; jointly strengthening the safety training of the riders; paying attention to improve the online advertising and the training of the proprietors; advertising and promoting the "Sunshine Food" project, etc.[14]

Acquisition by Alibaba Group

On 28 February 2018, it was announced that Alibaba Group was in talks to acquire Ele.me.[15] On April 2, 2018, Alibaba acquired Ele.me for US$9.5 billion.[16]

References
  1. "饿了么-网上订餐_外卖_饿了么订餐官网". Ele.me. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
  2. Banjo, Shelly; Ramli, David (1 April 2018). "Alibaba Takes Control of Ele.me, at $9.5 Billion Value". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  3. "饿了么获3.5亿美元E轮融资 腾讯京东等联合投资|饿了么|融资|京东_互联网_新浪科技_新浪网". Tech.sina.com.cn. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
  4. "饿了么宣布完成6.3亿美元新一轮融资 _科技_腾讯网". Tech.qq.com. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
  5. "饿了么接受滴滴入股 并与阿里谈融资_公司频道_财新网". Companies.caixin.com. 2015-11-25. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
  6. Chen, Lulu Yilun (May 25, 2017). "Alibaba to Lead $1 Billion Funding for Chinese Food Startup". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  7. "是什么吸引阿里12.5亿美元投资央视曝光后的饿了么？-文史-人民网". History.people.com.cn. 2016-04-14. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
  8. "饿了么推"食品安全服务"APP_科技_腾讯网". Tech.qq.com. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
  9. "饿了么推全国首个食安APP 监管部门一键揪出违规餐厅". News.163.com. 2017-03-02. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
  10. "饿了么公示自查自纠阶段成果，5257家违规餐厅被下线_科技_腾讯网". Tech.qq.com. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
  11. "饿了么食品安全月自查 四川省内下线违规商家258家_天府要闻_四川新闻_四川在线". Sichuan.scol.com.cn. 2017-03-22. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
  12. "The food delivery market in Great China in 2019 | Daxue Consulting". daxueconsulting.com. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
  13. "Web2Asia China ecommerce client ALDI wins ele.me Fastest Growing Merchant Award 2019". Web2Asia - China E-Commerce, Tmall Partner & Digital Marketing Agency. 2020-01-13. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
  14. "饿了么、美团点评等四家网络订餐平台成立自律共建联盟 违法商户同步下线|美团|自律|食品_新浪财经_新浪网". Finance.sina.com.cn. 2017-04-17. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
  15. Wang, Yue. "Alibaba Moves To Swallow Up China's Ele.me Food Delivery Service". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-02-28.
  16. "阿里巴巴宣布95亿美元全资收购饿了么 张旭豪转任董事长". wallstreetcn.com. 2018-04-02. Archived from the original on 2018-04-02. Retrieved 2018-04-02.

Further reading
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