---
title: "Exclusive | Interview with Jili Founder Huang Xiongwei: How Can a Traditional FMCG Company Secure Three Rounds of Financing Totaling Over 100 Million Yuan in Two Years?"
description: "Zhejiang Jili Food Co., Ltd., founded in May 2016, has secured three rounds of financing within two years, including a Pre-A round from Hongtai Fund (investors Yu Minhong and Sheng Xitai) and an upcoming A+ round exceeding 100 million yuan. Founder Huang Xiongwei explains why venture capital favors a traditional offline distribution company and shares Jili's unique business strategies."
author: "袁来"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2018-06-23"
language: "en"
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# Exclusive | Interview with Jili Founder Huang Xiongwei: How Can a Traditional FMCG Company Secure Three Rounds of Financing Totaling Over 100 Million Yuan in Two Years?

> Zhejiang Jili Food Co., Ltd., founded in May 2016, has secured three rounds of financing within two years, including a Pre-A round from Hongtai Fund (investors Yu Minhong and Sheng Xitai) and an upcoming A+ round exceeding 100 million yuan. Founder Huang Xiongwei explains why venture capital favors a traditional offline distribution company and shares Jili's unique business strategies.

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**Introduction** Zhejiang Jili Food Co., Ltd. was founded in May 2016, with its core product being Jili Corn Juice. Within less than a month of its establishment, the company received a Pre-A round of financing of tens of millions of yuan from Hongtai Fund (investors Yu Minhong and Sheng Xitai). Seven months later, in February 2017, Jili secured its A round. A year later, in June this year, Jili is about to close its A+ round, with the financing amount reaching over 100 million yuan.
When meeting Huang Xiongwei, founder and CEO of Zhejiang Jili Food, he had just finished negotiating financing with venture capital institutions. He revealed to New Distribution that Jili's third round of financing is about to conclude, with this round reaching over 100 million yuan and involving related industrial capital.
Why has an FMCG company that follows traditional offline distribution attracted venture capital, and how has it secured three rounds of financing in just two years? What charm and characteristics does this company possess?
Recently, New Distribution conducted an exclusive interview with Huang Xiongwei, founder and CEO of Jili. He explained why venture capital institutions, which are keen on internet investments, would favor Jili, a company that operates offline in a "tough and tiring" manner. Additionally, what business philosophies does Jili have that differ from other traditional FMCG companies and are worth our attention?
01
**Seeing Opportunities in the Food Industry During the Financial Crisis**
Before entering the food industry, Huang Xiongwei had been engaged in foreign trade work on an internet B2B platform, which brought him into contact with many offline实体 enterprises.
He recalled that when the 2008 financial crisis broke out, it affected almost every industry, leading to many bankruptcies. However, he noticed that the food industry was less volatile and had strong resilience. This insight made him see entrepreneurial opportunities, and he immediately entered the food industry.
Huang told New Distribution that around 2010, there were many food safety hazards in freshly squeezed beverages in the catering industry, with various flavor enhancers and thickeners. At that time, there were numerous negative news reports, and even the TV program "Focus Report" had paid attention.
"During this process, we identified a pain point and did one thing: we standardized the raw materials for freshly squeezed beverages in catering, making them semi-finished products, similar to a central kitchen model. Catering businesses only needed to perform the final step to produce the beverage."
After completing this, restaurant owners gradually began to make demands. Even with just one step, it was still troublesome for B and C class catering outlets. The restaurants themselves were small with limited staff, so they hoped to eliminate even the final step and directly use pre-packaged food. These demands from restaurant owners sparked Huang's thinking.
Huang stated, "The demands from these restaurants gave us further plans for the future. Although our annual sales in the fresh-squeezed raw material field could reach 100-200 million yuan, it was a B2B business. If competitors came with similar product quality but lower prices, we would have no way to resist. During these five years of operating the B2B business, we also discovered the demand for B2C."
Combining the backend supply chain management experience accumulated from operating grain fresh-squeezed raw materials, Huang launched the Jili Corn Juice brand in May 2015.
With operational advantages and the overall external environment, successful cases of branding in the bulk market, such as Three Squirrels, Juewei Duck Neck, and Wanglaoji, convinced Huang that grain-based beverages could also establish national brands. Consumers already had a deep basic understanding of grain categories, and it aligned with the natural and healthy consumption trend.
In 2017, Jili Corn Juice expanded into Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui markets, achieving sales of 100 million yuan that year. It is reported that in 2018, Jili aims to achieve sales of 300 million yuan.
02
**Why Did Capital Favor Jili?**
Undoubtedly, these impressive achievements were supported by capital. Huang told New Distribution that the reasons why capital favored Jili, which follows traditional offline distribution, can be viewed from three levels.
From the overall environment: First, consumption upgrading is the general trend. Second, the new generation of consumers has personalized and differentiated consumption needs, which will give rise to many new brands. Brand fragmentation is also a market trend.
From the category development perspective: Both domestically and internationally, the market prospects for grain beverages are highly regarded. Investment institutions also consider it a high-potential growth category in the next stage of the beverage market, especially in foreign markets. It is understood that the angel investment institutions behind Vita Coco and Vitaminwater invested in a grain beverage brand in 2016, and the US market is also paying close attention to this track.
In fact, the domestic corn juice category has a huge existing market, with the catering market alone reaching 30-40 billion yuan. If the suitable sales channels for corn juice are further extended to modern trade, special channels, gift boxes, and family banquets, the market size could reach hundreds of billions.
Huang stated that based on such market capacity, it is sufficient to support Jili in building a major brand. Additionally, the corn juice category has a strong consumer awareness foundation, so there is no need to spend too much effort and time educating the market.
If Jili were to create a "buckwheat" beverage or something new, consumers might not have prior consumption experience or understanding of the category, requiring a long time to cultivate the market, like Wanglaoji in its early days. Such markets have many uncertainties, and generally, capital would not enter.
From the company level: First, product strength. For any food company, product always comes first. Jili did not innovate a new category but used innovative technology and processes to maintain the same taste as freshly squeezed corn juice at room temperature, without any flavorings, pigments, or additives (three no-additions), while also possessing natural, healthy, and nutritious attributes.
Second, over the past five years, Jili has been engaged in the supply chain processing of grain raw materials, establishing a comprehensive supply chain system from raw materials to production and processing, ensuring stable quality and taste.
This backend supply chain system and technical barriers in R&D processes give Jili strong product strength when entering the market. At the same time, the technical threshold provides Jili with a certain window period to solidly expand the market without competitive interference.
Huang revealed to New Distribution that capital sees Jili's development potential, and of course, Jili also needs capital's support.
As a traditional FMCG company aiming to enter the national market and build a national brand, it often takes at least 7-8 years, as seen with Wanglaoji, Xiangpiaopiao, and many other FMCG brands.
Moreover, in the era of consumer sovereignty, the life cycle of beverages is very short. Combining these two points, Jili hopes to use capital to accelerate market expansion and shorten the brand-building cycle. With strong products, capital provides cash and resources, giving Jili excellent ammunition to upgrade and fight.
03
**Salary Cuts for Recruitment, Offering Stock Options to Employees**
Capital and team are the two wings of an enterprise; both are needed for growth. Relying on capital can make you big, and relying on the team can make you strong.
To ensure that those who followed Huang to start the business can benefit, Jili specifically hired a third-party stock option service company to establish an option pool, offering 5-10% of options to employees.
Huang told New Distribution, "Entrepreneurship is tough. Every morning when you wake up, there are almost a pile of problems to solve. With the involvement of capital, it has brought us a lot of pressure. Not only me, but our team has also had to step out of our comfort zones. The purpose of opening up options is to hope that everyone in the company can do their utmost to build a brand together, raising Jili from an unknown child to an adult and making it famous. In this process, the team can achieve success and reap the benefits of capital."
It is understood that all core executives of Jili were recruited with salary cuts, with some even taking a one-third reduction, but Jili offers more stock option rewards.
The value of options will make everyone see themselves as shareholders of the company. Huang knows that to break through in the red ocean of FMCG competition, new ideas and methods are necessary. Opening up options to let employees truly participate in Jili's entrepreneurship is a new idea.
04
**Penetrate and Thoroughly Develop the Origin Market**
Of course, the new idea also has another meaning: **not playing by the usual rules.**
As a company in the early stage of category development and with ample funds, the conventional marketing approach is to leverage media for widespread communication, occupy the leadership position in the category, and then capture consumer minds.
Alternatively, as a new brand born in the internet era, it should lean towards internet "playbooks," such as online fan gathering, community marketing, micro-dramas and micro-films, brand IP, etc. But Jili has done none of these. Huang believes this is not Jili's current core focus.
Huang told New Distribution, "I come from the internet myself, so internet playbooks are not an obstacle for Jili. But at the current stage, or in the past, Jili was not suitable for them during its startup phase. In fact, the corn juice category is a huge track. Our strategy is to enter a large category with a small cut. The consumption scenario for corn juice is in catering, which is Jili's origin market. We must penetrate and thoroughly develop the catering market. This can be said to be Jili's most basic scenario. Over the past year, we haven't done anything else but solidly work on the catering market."
Jili did not touch online or engage in high-profile marketing. In Huang's view, first grasp the consumption scenario, then focus on communication. A startup must first have a foundation market, and this is also related to the "ready-to-drink" consumption attribute of the category.
In terms of recruitment, Jili has been very cautious in the past. Huang told New Distribution that Jili participated in the Spring Sugar Fair in March this year. Over a thousand people expressed interest and willingness to sign contracts, but Jili ultimately selected only a dozen or so.
Because Jili clearly knows which channels this product is suitable for and what resources distributors should be equipped with, to avoid issues like slow market movement, service effort, and maintenance costs later, Jili tries to find matching distributors.
**Final Thoughts**
Huang emphasized that the original intention of taking money was to shorten the branding process. "Now we have secured the third round. If nothing unexpected happens, we will raise a fourth round early next year. In the past, we have been deeply cultivating our core market and building a core market model. Now we have basically succeeded."
Next, Jili will focus on occupying consumer brand awareness and building a "city wall" of consumer recognition. Establish Jili's EPR matrix, using various forms including online communities, Douyin, and Weibo, to fully communicate and interact with consumers, allowing more young consumers to know and become familiar with Jili.
In fact, the first two years of Jili were about running the model, building the market, and honing the team. The next task is to truly expand and fight for the market. This is a tough battle, and for Jili, the road ahead is long and arduous.
In late August, the "2018 China Digital Innovation Conference (2018FDIC)" with the theme "Finding New Engines for Growth" will be held in Shanghai, hosted by the China FMCG Industry Association and organized by New Distribution.
The conference will last three days, focusing on two main themes: marketing and supply chain, with six parallel forums on brand, distribution, communication, B2B, same-city logistics, and innovative retail. We will invite industry experts, CEOs, and senior brand executives to deeply interpret the trends and drivers of digital transformation in the FMCG industry.
This conference will have over 5,000 enterprises participating. It will bring together outstanding explorers and promoters of digital transformation across industries, sharing case studies of digital transformation practices for industry enterprises and partners, discussing trends and cutting-edge applications of digital technology, and building a bridge for brand owners, distributors, retail enterprises, and marketing agencies to help FMCG manufacturers obtain the latest information and understand best application practices. It will help brand owners and distributors find new engines for digital growth in the internet era!
**The following is the list of invited enterprises**
Conference Time
August 22-24, 2018
Conference Venue
Shanghai Baohua Marriott Hotel
Conference Content
August 22: All-day check-in
Afternoon 14:00-17:30: Distributor same-city logistics parallel forum
Evening 18:30-21:00: New Distribution Night Gala Dinner
August 23: Theme: Marketing Digital Innovation
Morning 9:00-12:00: Marketing Digital Innovation Main Forum
Afternoon 14:00-17:30: Brand, Distribution, Communication Parallel Forums
August 24: Theme: FMCG Supply Chain Digital Upgrade
All day: FMCG Supply Chain Conference
Registration Method
Registration is now open. Long press the QR code below or click "Read Original" to register. Early bird tickets are limited to 200, with a 50% discount, available while supplies last!
Registration Consultation
Ticket inquiries:
Media cooperation inquiries:
Highlights of New Distribution's Previous Conferences
Click the links below to review the highlights of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd FMCG + Internet Conferences:
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