Brief: Chinese e-grocery giants Dingdong, Missfresh file for US IPOs

• Dingdong Maicai, a Shanghai-based e-commerce platform selling fresh produce, has filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ‘DDL.’
• Meanwhile, its Beijing-based competitor Missfresh has also filed for a US IPO, aiming for a listing on the Nasdaq under the symbol ‘MF.’
• Missfresh reported revenue of $935 million for 2020, with a $252 million net loss. Dingdong reported $1.8 billion in revenue with a net loss of $500 million for the same period.

Why it matters:

Neither company offered details on how many shares they plan to offer nor the price ranges they will sell in, giving only placeholder values.

Last month, Dingdong closed a Series D round which saw it raise over $1 billion in funding from the likes of Coatue Management, SoftBank, and Sequoia Capital.

Missfresh — which raised at least $800 million in funding last year — is backed by Tencent, Goldman Sachs, and Chinese government-linked funds, among others.

According to AgFunder and AFN‘s China 2021 Agrifood Startup Investing Report, the ‘eGrocery’ category – comprising companies selling produce and other groceries online and delivering them to consumers – raised $3.6 billion in total in 2020, making it the country’s single highest-funded category. [Disclosure: AgFunder is AFN‘s parent company.]