At the start of 2022, Zhoupu Data, a provider of digital upgrade and big data services for China's FMCG industry, announced the completion of approximately RMB 150 million in Series B+ financing. It is reported that this round of financing was led by SoftBank Ventures Asia and Professor Zeng Ming, former Chief of Staff of Alibaba Group, with existing shareholder FreeS Fund following. Yuewei Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for this round. Miao Jiangbo, founder and CEO of Zhoupu Data, stated that the funds raised in this round will be mainly used to increase technology R&D and market expansion efforts, and to continue promoting the construction of digital infrastructure for channel distribution in the FMCG industry. Founded in January 2016, Zhoupu Data has long been committed to providing digital and intelligent solutions as well as industry big data services for distribution channels and supply chain management in the FMCG industry. Since 2016, Zhoupu Data has received multiple rounds of investment, continuously enhancing the depth of industry services, building a complete solution from distributors to brand owners, starting from improving distributor efficiency and management, thereby achieving efficiency improvement across the entire FMCG distribution industry. It is understood that entering its second five-year plan, Zhoupu Data has currently provided BOSS (dealer full-chain business management and efficiency improvement) business digital solutions to over 30,000 distributors in nearly 300 cities nationwide, covering over 3 million various retail terminals, with platform annual GMV approaching RMB 300 billion. With this support, in 2022, Zhoupu Data also launched the BASE (brand market insight/precise market expansion and channel optimization improvement) accelerated growth solution for FMCG brand owners. Digital and intelligent upgrade, empowering efficient breakthroughs Over the past five years, China's FMCG distribution has undergone rapid changes. As a key link in distribution, distributors are rapidly awakening their awareness of transformation amid various challenges and changes, continuously improving business efficiency and upgrading business models through digital tools. At the same time, with the birth and iteration of new and old brands under new consumerism, the trillion-yuan FMCG distribution field is also facing new changes: online channels account for 25% of China's FMCG distribution, and previous dividends are gradually fading. The offline channels, accounting for 75%, are increasingly regarded by more brand owners as the mainstream foundation. Omnichannel and multi-touchpoint layout, with high integration of online and offline, will become the core competitive advantage for FMCG brand operations in the new era. However, facing the offline red ocean constructed by nearly one million distributors and over ten million retail outlets, all parties in the industry chain are challenged by the "data black hole" formed over time due to invisible distribution paths, imprecise resource matching, and uncontrollable huge investments. In the past, brand owners could only obtain limited data through their own systems, making it impossible to evaluate business operations, market competition, and actual sales, ultimately leading to tens of thousands of good products starting with the brand, stopping at distribution, and dying in the market. How to quickly and real-time gain market insights to plan strategies? How to accurately find matching distributors and quickly establish connections? How to build an intelligent management system with smooth data flow? Breaking this "data black hole" has become the focus of brand owners. Zhoupu Data's BASE (brand market insight/precise market expansion and channel optimization improvement) accelerated growth solution for FMCG brand owners, through three service modules: Yicha (real-time market insight), Yituo (precise market expansion matching), and Yifenxiao (channel management optimization), constructs an integrated "accompanying acceleration + mutual growth" solution, providing a new approach for brands to quickly open markets, precisely connect channels, and optimize management efficiency in empowering deep market insight, efficient channel matching, transaction and distribution tracking, and channel management optimization. Continuous deep cultivation, winning market favor Ding Haipeng, Partner at SoftBank Ventures Asia, said: "Affected by multiple factors such as the pandemic and rising commodity prices, FMCG enterprises face challenges in digital transformation, including supply chain reshaping, organizational restructuring, and changes in decision-makers' strategies and perspectives. The challenges are significant and require implementation in all aspects. Zhoupu Data's core products are based on a big data service platform for the FMCG industry and AI technology, providing big data auxiliary support for production and operation decisions at various links such as brand owners, distributors, warehousing, logistics, and stores. I believe Zhoupu Data's empowerment of the entire FMCG industry chain will give enterprises more winning chances in fierce market competition." Li Yinan, Executive Director at SoftBank Ventures Asia, said: "The digital transformation wave for FMCG distributors is in full swing. Zhoupu Data has been deeply cultivating the industry chain for many years, continuously refining best business practices and combining them with the latest technology into its product matrix. We believe the distributor module combination is just the first stop. In the future, it will expand its product service matrix along the upstream and downstream of the industry chain and continuously explore and innovate new business models." Professor Zeng Ming, former Chief of Staff of Alibaba Group, said: "In the first stage of internet development, network effects were the source of enterprise value. Entering the second half of the internet era, simple network effects are not enough to form core competitiveness; only by forming a complex collaborative network can the ecosystem expand. In recent years, more and more emerging brands have entered a period of peaking online dividends and face pressure to enter offline distribution channels. Zhoupu Data has always focused on building offline digital infrastructure for the FMCG industry. While using network effects to help S2B2b offline supply chains achieve precise distribution, it also creates platform-level opportunities for upstream and downstream industry connections and even cross-industry collaboration. We can see the prototype of intelligent business landing in vertical fields. Based on this, we have reason to believe that Zhoupu Data will have greater innovation space in the future." Chen Shi, Investment Partner at FreeS Fund, said: "We are honored to have been working hand in hand with Zhoupu Data since its inception. As an angel investor in Zhoupu Data, we firmly believe that no matter how the macro economic environment changes, internet e-commerce cannot completely replace the offline distributor distribution channels in the FMCG industry. At the same time, distributors that cannot actively adapt to the times will be eliminated by the times." "We see that the offline retail distributor network in the United States completed centralization, digitalization, and networking (referred to as the 'three modernizations') before internet e-commerce, while the progress of the 'three modernizations' in China's offline retail distributor network clearly lags behind the birth and rapid development of internet e-commerce. Its 'three modernizations' process is a correct but difficult thing." "The core value provided by Zhoupu Data is to achieve distributor digitalization and networking, improve offline distribution efficiency in the FMCG industry, and at the same time build a digital distribution network that serves brand owners upstream, reducing distribution costs and accelerating distribution efficiency for brand owners, with broad social value and good commercial value." Miao Jiangbo, founder and CEO of Zhoupu Data, said: "Over the past six years, Zhoupu Data has always focused on the FMCG distribution field, continuously accelerating the R&D and implementation of data intelligence services for the entire FMCG industry, aiming to collaborate with Chinese FMCG brand owners, distributors, retailers, and consumers through integrated data intelligence solutions such as BOSS (dealer full-chain business management and efficiency improvement) and BASE (brand market insight/precise market expansion and channel optimization improvement), to jointly create a better business ecosystem development platform."