Summer Farm, a B2B e-commerce platform for China’s leisure and dining supply chain, invested by C Capital, has completed a new round of financing. The investors have not been disclosed yet, while Lighthouse Capital serves as the long-term exclusive financial advisor.

The funds will primarily be used for expanding new business scenarios. Prior to this, Summer Farm has completed multiple rounds of financing, with the most recent one being a Series C financing led by C Capital, announced in November 2021.

Summer Farm was established in 2016 and entered the dining B2B sector from the leisure dining one. It provides supply chain solutions for tea, coffee, and baking industries. It has served over 300,000 leisure dining merchants.

At the time of the last financing round, Summer Farm’s main strategic focus was “national expansion.” It has achieved this goal in stages by expanding from first and second-tier cities to third, fourth, and fifth-tier cities. Currently, it has approximately 180 branches nationwide, with some achieving next-day delivery in certain fourth and fifth-tier cities.

In terms of business operations, Summer Farm, as a supply chain provider, offers the foundational infrastructure for dining brands. At the same time, Summer Farm has undergone a core adjustment by splitting its previous “one-stop” supply chain.

Furthermore, Summer Farm can also assist its clients. If there are fluctuations in product quality that do not meet the standards of larger clients or if there is excessive inventory leading to waste or redundancy, Summer Farm can help absorb the excess inventory through its network of small and medium-sized clients or other customers. In other words, Summer Farm helps clients address issues related to stock volatility and inaccurate stocking. Additionally, Summer Farm provides customers with a food safety traceability system. Delivery times, batch codes, and other information are clearly traceable, enabling brand owners to better manage their franchise stores.

In addition to its product capabilities, Summer Farm has also achieved independent operations in terms of fulfillment networks, warehouse systems, and information technology capabilities. Each of these areas has its own service systems, pricing systems, and admission systems. Summer Farm has engaged an internationally renowned supply chain consulting team to review its entire “supply chain planning system.” The evaluation received was that Summer Farm is already in a state of being “comparatively outstanding” within the industry.

After completing this round of financing, Summer Farm will gradually develop upstream capabilities. On one hand, it will strengthen control over production capacity, and there is a possibility of establishing its own factories in the future. Additionally, Summer Farm is involved in product development and will invest more effort in food technology and R&D.

In the past two years, Summer Farm has expanded its customer beyond the main categories of tea, coffee, and baking to include light meals and western cuisine. It has transitioned from a “fully self-procured” model to a comprehensive service model, resulting in significantly improved organizational and operational efficiency.

C Capital is pleased to see Summer Farm’s business model contributes to the overall efficiency improvement of the industry’s supply chain and their ability to adapt to new consumer trends. They look forward to a stronger interaction and collaborative development between Summer Farm and C Capital’s ecosystem in the future.

Image source: Summer Farm official website