JD MRO will also be driving its ‘Partner Store’ digital solutions plan through VIPMRO’s offline retail channel
Chinese industrial supplies procurement company VIPMRO has been acquired by JD MRO, a subsidiary of JD.com, according to an official announcement made by JD.com today.
The acquisition will help JD MRO accelerate its growth in the Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) industry, the company said.
Following the acquisition, VIPMRO will become a sub-brand of JD MRO, and will give its parent company access to over 100,000 VIPMRO offline retail stores, it added.
JD MRO will also be extending digital solutions for the offline stores through its Partner Store plan, in the areas of product selection, transportation and delivery, and installation, among others.
“The acquisition of VIPMRO and the launch of Partner Store plan are only parts of JD’s investment in MRO industry,” VP at JD.com and President of JD Business, Chunzheng Song said in the company’s announcement.
“JD Business will further integrate resources in the market related with procurement and provide valuable long-chain services to enterprise clients,” he further added.
Founded in 2007 and based in Suzhou, VIPMRO has raised a total of $65.7 million in disclosed funding, with $48 million received in two tranches of its Series B financing held in October 2017 and May 2018.
JD.com has made earlier investments in VIPMRO prior to the acquisition. The Chinese retailing giant had led the VIPMRO’s Series B investment round in 2018. Participating investors included Chinese venture investment firms Yunqi Partners, Welight Capital, Puhua Capital, and Hong Kong-based private equity firm Bull Capital Partners.
Earlier this year, JD MRO announced that it had raised $230 million for a 10.7% stake in its Series A round of financing. Its Series A investors included California-headquartered GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital China, and Chinese state-owned CITIC Group’s private equity wing CITIC Private Equity.
With the funding, JD MRO’s valuation crossed the $2 billion, and the B2B MRO procurement company became JD.com’s fourth official unicorn company, joining JD Logistics, JD Health, and JD Digits.
The Asia Pacific region is the largest global market for the MRO industry, and is also the fastest growing. This is mainly due to manufacturing, which saw exponential growth in the Asian region due to a policy-level encouragement for the industry from major economies such as China and India.
As with other supply chain industries such as warehousing, efficiency needs in the MRO industry are a major driver for the market, influenced by rising digitization across the supply chain and developments in the smart factory segment.
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