Nice Tuan, a Chinese community e-commerce platform also known as Shihuituan, has secured $80 million in a Series C2 round of financing led by the country’s alternative asset management firm CDH Investments, bringing the total capital raised by the startup to nearly $300 million.

Global venture capital firm GGV Capital, INCE Capital, an investment firm created by former Qiming executive JP Gan, and CMBC International, a subsidiary of China Minsheng Bank, participated in the new round, CDH Investments announced in a WeChat post on Wednesday.

The Series C2 round marks the third investment that Nice Tuan completed this year.

Two months earlier, the company announced the completion of a Series C1 round at $81.4 million led by GGV Capital. In January, it closed an $88.3-million deal backed by an array of investors including Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, Beijing-based angel fund ZhenFund, Qiming Venture Partners, and China Growth Capital, among others.

Founded in April 2018, Nice Tuan provides fresh produce, beverage, leisure food and daily supplies through a namesake WeChat mini program to community customers. The company now serves nearly 20 million urban families across more than 100,000 residential communities in China.

The new financing will be used to strengthen its warehousing, distribution, and supply chain capabilities, as the company plans to launch a new round of market expansion plan to promote the sustainability of the business, according to the post.

“Nice Tuan will build the next generation of fresh produce logistics network leveraging China’s excellent new infrastructures, including ubiquitous mobile payments and utterly-competitive logistics services,” Chen Ying, the company’s chairman and co-CEO, wrote in an open letter to employees.

“In the following three years, we will build three million self pick-up points to empower our group buying services of fresh produce products. It will allow consumers in most Chinese cities and suburb regions to collect products within a walking distance of three to five minutes, and to enjoy next-day, or even same-day deliveries,” Chen wrote.

The Beijing-based startup is aggressively reloading ammunition to raise its stake in China’s increasingly competitive community e-commerce sector, which has seen a growing momentum since the COVID-19 outbreak as more consumers chose to dine at home to avoid human interactions.

A string of Nice Tuan’s domestic counterparts already showcased their latest financing rounds earlier this year, including Missfresh, which pocketed $495 million in a round led by CICC Capital; Tongcheng Life and its $200-million Series C round; and Xingsheng Selected which – according to sources – is on track to close about $800 million.

Originally published by Deal Street Asia