Wang Huainan, CEO of leading parenting portal Babytree, dismissed rumors that the company was dissembling its VIE structure in the U.S. to go public in China before May, Chinese media reported.
“Babytree is considering listing in China,” said Wang. “But at present our focus is on expanding our services to healthcare and education to build a full ecosystem.”
Founded in 2007, Babytree targets the tens of millions of parents in China by offering mother and baby products, parenting guides and techniques, and other diversified services.
Having surpassed its U.S. equivalent BabyCenter.com by pageviews in 2013, Babytree secured USD 300 million in Series C funding last July, 83% of which was from Chinese online cosmetics platform Jumei, reported Sohu IT.
Wang said that cooperating with Jumei will help Babytree get a large market share. And it did.
China Unicom’s app ranking shows that Babytree topped its list of parenting apps with 9.11 million active users in 2015. And according to Sohu IT, the company gained RMB 787 million in revenue (USD 121 million) last year, with net profit reaching RMB 80 million. Babytree is now valuated at RMB 5.2 billion. The company is expected to worth RMB 26 billion after it is listed domestically, reported NetEase Tech.
To compete for the mother and baby products market, e-commerce giant JD.com acquired Mia.com (http://mia.com/) and Alibaba-backed retailer Suning purchased Redbaby.
China initiated a two-child policy this year after enforcing the one-child policy for four decades. The country will likely see 20 million newborn babies each year, and the parenting market may receive RMB two trillion in revenue in 2016, Xinhua News reported.
(Top photo from Deviant Art)