Aug 14, 2018
GGV Capital's Hans Tung and Zara Zhang interviewed Zilin Chen, founder and CEO of BingoBox, China's first scalable 24-hour cashier-free convenience store and a GGV portfolio company. BingoBox features a smart counter for a staffless check-out experience, and uses RFID and computer vision to keep track of items. Users scan a QR code to enter the store, and pay via Alipay or WeChat Pay.
BingoBox is a pioneer in a phenomenon known as "new retail" in China, commonly understood as using technology to transform offline retail. BingoBox was launched to public in August 2016 and now has over 300 boxes in almost 30 cities in China. GGV led BingoBox's series A investment in July 2017. The company raised another $80 million in series B this January, which GGV also participated in.
Zilin discussed how the idea for BingoBox came about, how BingoBox differs from Amazon Go, and the technology and unit economics behind the stores.
The episode also features a bonus interview with Eric Xu, GGV Capital's managing partner based in China, who led our investment in BingoBox. Eric discussed the meaning of "new retail" and what made him want to invest in BingoBox.
The full transcript of this episode is available at 996.ggvc.com/2018/08/15/episode-18-zilin-chen-of-bingobox-on-the-future-of-new-retail-in-china/.
Join our listeners' community via WeChat/Slack at 996.ggvc.com/community. GGV Capital also produces a biweekly email newsletter in English, also called “996,” which has a roundup of the week’s most important happenings in tech in China. Subscribe at 996.ggvc.com.
The 996 Podcast is brought to you by GGV Capital, a multi-stage venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, Shanghai, and Beijing. We have been partnering with leading technology entrepreneurs for the past 18 years from seed to pre-IPO. With $3.8 billion in capital under management across eight funds, GGV invests in globally minded entrepreneurs in consumer internet, e-commerce, frontier tech, and enterprise. GGV has invested in over 290 companies, with more than 45 companies valued at over $1 billion. Portfolio companies include Airbnb, Alibaba, Bytedance (Toutiao), Ctrip, Didi Chuxing, DOMO, Hashicorp, Hellobike, Houzz, Keep, Musical.ly, Slack, Square, Wish, Xiaohongshu, YY, and others. Find out more at ggvc.com.
Listen to past episodes of our sister podcast, Founder Real Talk. It is a biweekly show that discusses challenges that founders and executives face and how they grow by dealing with them. The show is hosted by Glenn Solomon, managing partner at GGV Capital.