CHINA AGRIFOOD STARTUP INVESTING REPORT RELEASED...

AgFunder has just released the 2018 China AgriFood Startup Investing Report in collaboration with Chinese food tech VC Bits x Bites. The report covers technology startups operating across the agrifood value chain as well as other non-tech startups disrupting China’s food industry.

In 2018, Chinese agrifood startups raised $5.8 billion of investment across 283 deals with 318 investors.

That’s 222% year-over-year growth in total funding, and while a couple of outliers skewed the data somewhat, there was also a 60% increase in the number of deals confirming the growth.

Startups building businesses downstream at the consumer end of the agrifood supply chain dominate the sector overall, but investment and activity upstream increased significantly as startups aim to improve efficiencies for farmers and throughout the broken supply chain.

Upstream technologies raised $960 million across 64 deals in 2018 up 800% from $106 million across 28 deals in 2017. Improved reporting might have contributed to this increase.

Some entrepreneurs started innovating for lower-income Chinese consumers with food services that suit their budgets and convenience requirements, while others continued to answer the demands of the growing middle-class for premium food products and experiences - a major driver for the overall Chinese economy.

The only category that did not experience growth was In-Store Retail & Restaurant Tech after a lot of hype and subsequent failure of startups building unmanned stores and vending machine technology in 2017.

Alibaba and Tencent continued to play a pivotal role in the industry, responsible for just under half the total funding during the year. Alibaba was responsible for one of the largest M&A of the year, acquiring the rest of ele.me’s shares from Baidu at a $9.5 billion valuation. The sector also saw five IPOs in 2018 from zero in 2017.