Sequoia Capital China has launched a new accelerator programme to cultivate early-stage startups and entrepreneurs. Separately, US foodtech startup Eat Just has raised $25 million from Alibaba-backed C2 Capital Partners.
Sequoia China debuts YUÈ to foster angel, Series A startups
Tech investment heavyweight Sequoia Capital China has introduced a new accelerator programme to nurture China’s early-stage startups and entrepreneurs with a focus on the angel to Series A stage.
Sequoia China, an early investor of TikTok-owner ByteDance and Alibaba Group, officially launched the accelerator programme YUÈ on Monday to provide China’s emerging startups with “systematic entrepreneurship courses, resources, and services”, the investor wrote in a post on its WeChat official account.
YUÈ, which means “young & enduring”, looks to impart knowledge in areas such as human resource management, tech empowerment, branding and marketing, digitisation and financial risk control to its cohort of entrepreneurs, according to the post.
Led by Sequoia China’s helmsman Neil Shen, YUÈ will offer courses directly taught by its partners. The programme will also invite partners across Sequoia Capital’s global offices in the US, Europe, India and Southeast Asia as well as chief executive officers (CEOs) of decacorn companies to share their market insights and business operation expertise.
Sequoia China said graduates from the YUÈ programme will be granted the right to access its seven incubation offices across four Chinese cities, with benefits including free office space and business consulting. It may also invest $1 million in selected startups.
The move to launch YUÈ comes roughly four years after Sequoia China established the Sequoia China Seed Fund to invest in nascent businesses across the fields of TMT, healthcare and consumer services. As of October 2021, Sequoia China Seed Fund has backed more than 180 early-stage startups, about 70% of which have chosen it as their first institutional investor.
YUÈ is an addition to Sequoia Capital’s global accelerator network, which already covers India and Southeast Asia with Sequoia India’s initiative Surge as well as Europe and the US through Sequoia Arc.
US foodtech startup Eat Just raises $25m for China expansion
Eat Just, a foodtech startup famed for its plant-based eggs, announced on Tuesday the completion of a $25-million investment to scale its business in China.
The San Francisco-based startup secured the new financing alongside a strategic partnership from C2 Capital Partners, a private equity (PE) firm established in 2018 with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group serving as its anchor investor.
The tie-up, which marks C2’s first investment and partnership in the alternative protein sector, is currently supporting Eat Just’s go-to-market strategies, sales, branding, consumer insights, hiring and regulatory approach in China.
The startup is looking to elevate its stakes in China, which accounts for about a third of the world’s egg and meat consumption.
Eat Just started its adventure in China back in 2019, when it launched the signature plant-based egg brand JUST Egg on the country’s e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba’s Tmall.com.
Beyond online sales of JUST Egg in China, it has gained good traction in Shanghai, where it works with almost 30 popular street vendors to sell plant-based versions of Jianbing, a traditional Chinese street food like a crêpe.
The startup said it has also had preliminary conversations with Chinese officials about the possibility of introducing its cell-cultivated meat brand GOOD Meat to the local market.
GOOD Meat is already available to consumers in Singapore and is preparing for an entry into the US market.