36 Kr starter | Tea bag brand "CHALI Tea Lane" received a series B financing of 100 million yuan, focusing on tea product innovation

36Kr learned that the tea bag brand CHALI Tea recently completed a 100 million yuan B round of financing, led by Country Garden Venture Capital, wen's investment, Yikai Fund and followed by Yikai Fund. It is understood that this round of financing will be mainly used for channel expansion and the construction of R&D center of Nansha factory.

Chali (hereinafter referred to as Chali) was established in August 2013, positioning tea bag brand and professional tea service provider, the main product is flower and fruit blended tea, has sold nearly 600 million tea bags. In the past Double Eleven, the sales volume of the flagship store in Chali won the third place in the Tmall tea industry and the first place in the herbal tea category, surpassing last year's all-day sales in the first ten minutes of sale; on the Jingdong platform, the peach oolong tea in the double eleven tea sold 140,000 copies, and achieved the first result in the sales volume of single products in the Jingdong tea industry.

In terms of the B-end market, according to the Chali team, Chali currently has a market share of about 24% in B-end channels such as hotels, offices and restaurants. In the report on Chali in July 36 this year, Tan Qiong, the founder of Chali, predicted that the total sales of tea bags in China in the next 1-2 years may exceed Lipton.

(Lollipop milk tea products, picture from tea)

Chali continues to pay attention to the innovation of carrier forms of tea products and the output of new industrial standardization. In addition to the research and development of a series of original leaf tea products with tea + blending, the brand also launched a lollipop milk tea product positioned as "fun and interesting" this year, and the 10,000 pre-sale new products launched during the Double Eleven period were sold out for two hours.

Under the background of the upgrading of domestic consumer demand, CTC red crushed tea based on the European and American tea supply chain and costing only a few cents faces localization challenges in taste and process. In addition to traditional categories, health tea, herbal tea, fruit tea and other categories have gradually gained the love of young consumers. At present, the domestic market lacks domestic tea FMCG brands for mass consumers, especially young consumer groups.

Changes in C-end demand further promote B-side research and development of better products. Lipton peeled off the independent operation of Lihua this year, and launched a series of new products such as triangle original leaf tea + blending; tea chain brands such as Heytea and Tea YanYue color expanded offline and successively launched tea bag products; fast food brand KFC, and new coffee brands such as Timely Brewery even combined tea and coffee to launch "tea coffee" products.

In the face of such a market trend, Lin Chuan, CMO of Chali, said: "China's tea market space is huge, how to gain consumer trust, build the shortest distance to reach consumers, will be the core of FMCG brand operations." In the Chinese tea category, everyone is on the same starting line. The goal of Chali is to make CHALI tea that has grown into the world based on Chinese tea culture, rather than making a Chinese version of Lipton. ”

Mou Baolu, head of VC business of Country Garden Venture Capital, said: "Chali combines traditional Chinese tea art with modern trend culture and new consumer demand, creating a tonal tea drinking culture that meets the needs of new consumers. ”

<h3>Here's a detailed report of 36Kr on Tea in July this year:</h3>

Grasping the new demand in the "tea brewing" scene, "CHALI Tea" upgrades the tea bag business for the B-end and C-end