A New Packaging Force Arrives as Yanantang Closes Tens-of-Millions-Yuan Series A to Focus on Eco-Friendly Packaging and Accelerate Digital Transformation

"Yanantang" recently completed tens of millions of RMB in Series A financing, with the investor being the Aptar Group; the funds from this round will be mainly used for strategic cooperation between the two parties to provide innovative products and services to the skincare market. In December 2020, Yanantang had completed a pre-A round of financing of tens of millions of RMB.

Founded in 2016, "Yanantang" is a research-driven comprehensive beauty solutions institution. It started as a self-media outlet focused on skincare, makeup and medical aesthetics, and has now formed an ecosystem of "self-media + e-commerce + own brand + research institute," providing diversified skin solutions to both B-end and C-end users.

Founder Zhao Guoqing told 36Kr that the packaging solution provider Aptar and Yanantang have reached agreement on an "ingredients + packaging" cooperation model, and the two parties will cooperate in three areas: content cooperation, data sharing and co-creation of own brands. After this round of investment, Yanantang will transform into a digital company.

Starting from content popularization, Yanantang has entered multiple platforms such as social media and short video under its self-media matrix, forming a three-tier content system centered on "experts + editors," and building a systematic knowledge-learning system in the broad fields of skincare and beauty. In 2017, Yanantang expanded into the e-commerce business of the Yanantang Youxuan Mall and provided one-on-one skincare consultation services to users through its service account.

Note: The image above shows the Yanantang system

Relying on C-end users, Yanantang has built health profile data on more than 100,000 users, more than 300 communities and more than 60,000 private-domain traffic. By operating private-domain traffic through communities, while outputting professional knowledge and courses, Yanantang has reached a brand co-creation cooperation model with users: some users can participate in product development and evaluation, manage communities and brand promotion, and receive a share of sales.

In 2019, Yanantang established its own brand "Yanzhiyouwu." Through earlier proprietary user profile data and surveys of a broader population, as well as having R&D engineers join the communities so that user feedback can be obtained quickly during R&D, it achieved precise R&D and product co-creation. At present, Yanzhiyouwu has about 20 SKUs, mainly functional serums, priced at around RMB 200.

Under the Yanantang Skin Management Research Institute, 50 sets of knowledge-system maps and a training course system of more than 200 sessions have been created. While supporting Yanantang's self-media output, these are also open to the industry, MCN agencies, beauty bloggers, channel stores and others, providing training services. In addition, Yanantang's user data system is also opened to partner brands for joint development of new products. At present, Yanantang has accumulated more than 2 million followers and more than 200,000 members across the internet.

Aptar and Yanantang have reached agreement on environmental trends. On the one hand, on the self-media side, Yanantang will step up output on eco-friendly packaging trends; at the same time, Yanantang will also launch empty-bottle recycling on the e-commerce side to build a deeper connection with users; on the other hand, Yanantang's own brand Yanzhiyouwu will also try recyclable/degradable packaging materials.

Founder Zhao Guoqing said that domestic skincare brands have serious premiums, with most of the spending going to brand promotion, so the true value of the product is not proportional to its actual pricing, and the portion spent on promotion could actually be used for environmental protection. Yanantang's advantage is that it has already accumulated a large amount of user data through the private domain, and in the future it will also expand into public-domain traffic to form an interactive model between the public and private domains and enhance its own platform capabilities. Yanantang will also continue to follow the trend of the shift from ingredient-based skincare to joy-based skincare, using functional ingredients as the base point and starting from segmented scenarios and populations to provide customized services.

In terms of the team, founder Zhao Guoqing graduated from Fudan University / National University of Singapore with an MBA, and formerly worked as an R&D engineer at Unilever, with many years of experience in skincare R&D and supply chain.

——This article is reproduced from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-377848.html