The laundry service platform eDaixi secured USD 100 million in Series B financing last year from Baidu and other investors, yet it has been rumored recently that its Series C round had failed. Zhang Rongyao, founder of eDaixi, dismissed the rumor in an interview with the technology and business blog Huxiu. He also made predictions on the future of O2O industry.
Zhang said that eDaixi hasn’t initiated a Series C financing yet, and that eDaixi is doing well with the B+ round of financing closing soon.
“The B+ round was initiated by our partner with whom we will extend on the already established business cooperation,” said Zhang. “We are making profits and do not lack funds, and the rumor of failing a Series C financing came out of nowhere.”
Zhang also shared his vision for the future of O2O services, saying that an O2O service must obtain four features to survive:
1. It meets a rigid demand, as needless services are not services.
2. It creates room for decreased costs and increased efficiency.
3. It has a scale effect. Zhang believes that two O2O services that are mostly likely to succeed are take-out and laundry services, because while a restaurant can make many cups of coffee and portions of fast food at one time, a laundry shop can wash hundreds even thousands of pieces of clothes in one go. This kind of scaling can maximize profits.
4. The user experience must be better than elsewhere, and so must the quality of the product. For example, a car wash shop offers satisfying services and can wash 500 cars per day, yet hand-washing a car by the side of the road would be less ideal, in terms of either the efficiency or the service quality.
Zhang also predicts a future with more part-time housekeepers or cleaners meeting 80% of all housekeeping demands such as picking up children and watering flowers, whereas only 20% of the needs would require full-time housekeepers. “I believe that part-time housekeepers will provide more professional services,” said Zhang.
Founded in 2013, eDaixi uses China’s largest social network, WeChat, as an entry point for users to place orders on washing and cleaning services covering clothes, shoes, home textiles, and leather products. The platform now receives over 100,000 orders daily, and has nearly 10 million users.
(Top photo from Baidu Images)