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Ele.me
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<h2 id="history">History</h2> <p>Ele.me is an online-to-offline (O2O) catering and <a href="/facts/Food_delivery/o6l9xquS">food delivery</a> platform in <a href="/facts/China/lTjIXY5p">China</a>. It was founded by Mark Zhang and Jack Kang in Minhang Campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2008 and now is developed and operated by Lazhasi Network Technology (Shanghai) Co., LTD. By the end of December in 2016, Ele.me has covered more than 2000 cities in China, with more than 1.3 million joining shops, 15 thousand staff and more than nine million daily orders. Also, over three million riders have registered Fengniao Delivery (the sub-service of Ele.me).<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> </p><p>On 27 January 2015, Ele.me finished its Series E <a href="/facts/Financing/RKTAE7sC">financing</a> with $350 million invested by <a href="/facts/CITIC_PE/cPtRxUBw">CITIC PE</a>, <a href="/facts/Tencent_Holdings/88gpEqLy">Tencent Holdings</a>, <a href="/facts/JD.com/2WuIvlmg">JD.com</a> (Joybuy), <a href="/facts/HongShan/sVlC2NEf">HongShan</a> (<a href="/facts/Sequoia_Capital/PY46UgYf">Sequoia Capital</a>) and Dianping.com.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a> On 28 August 2015, Ele.me announced the completion of its Series F financing with $630 million. The investment was led by CITIC PE and <a href="/facts/Hualian_Group/a1h4WAen">Hualian Group</a>, followed by new investors like <a href="/facts/China_Media_Capital/AqIwknyT">China Media Capital</a> (CMC), Gopher Asset as well as the original investors including Tencent Holdings, JD.com (Joybuy) and Hongshan Capital (Sequoia Capital).<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7"><sup>7</sup></a> </p><p>On 24 November 2015, Ele.me obtained a strategic investment from <a href="/facts/Didi_Chuxing/o2etzfhb">Didi Chuxing</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8"><sup>8</sup></a> On 17 December 2015, <a href="/facts/Alibaba_Group/kdAe4APj">Alibaba Group</a> invested $1.25 billion to Ele.me.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:9" href="#fn:9"><sup>9</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10"><sup>10</sup></a> </p><p>On 1 March 2017, Ele.me announced that they would launch an app entitled "Food Security Service". Restaurants that are suspected of violating the law will be synced to the supervision department, and this function now covers all the restaurants in Shanghai.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11"><sup>11</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12"><sup>12</sup></a> On 8 March 2017, Ele.me announced that 5,257 restaurants were found to violate the rules and were removed within one week.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13"><sup>13</sup></a> Additionally, 258 restaurants were removed in Sichuan province.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14"><sup>14</sup></a> </p><p>By 2019, Ele.me had become the largest food delivery service in China with 53.4% market share.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:15" href="#fn:15"><sup>15</sup></a> At the same time, the company increasingly attracted foreign retailers such as notably German supermarket chain <a href="/facts/Aldi/dThsEslt">ALDI</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:16" href="#fn:16"><sup>16</sup></a> expanding beyond pure food delivery to FMCG and grocery delivery as part of <a href="/facts/Alibaba_Group/kdAe4APj">Alibaba Group</a>'s "New Retail" push. </p> <h3>Union</h3> <p>On 20 April 2017, under the support and guidance of Beijing Food and Drug Administration, major online meal ordering platforms including Ele.me, Meituan Dianping, Baidu Takeaway and Daojia established an online meal ordering platform self-discipline union voluntarily.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:17" href="#fn:17"><sup>17</sup></a> </p><p>The CEOs of the four platforms made a statement and signed the "Self-discipline Convention on Online Takeaway Ordering Platform's Union" together. This convention promised solemnly to the society from 14 aspects including the proprietors’ pre-join promise, platform admission, and the improvement of the records management and information publicity of the proprietors. Its specific contents includes: establishing food security institutes and voluntarily publish information to the society on the homepages of the platforms; tightening the regulation of platform admission; submitting the management data and information to the Food and Drug Administration regularly and actively; taking linked supervision and punitive measures among the platforms, and simultaneously removing the restaurants that violate the rules from all the platforms; jointly strengthening the safety training of the riders; paying attention to improve the online advertising and the training of the proprietors; advertising and promoting the "Sunshine Food" project, etc.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:18" href="#fn:18"><sup>18</sup></a> </p> <h3>Acquisition by Alibaba Group</h3> <p>On 28 February 2018, it was announced that Alibaba Group was in talks to acquire Ele.me.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:19" href="#fn:19"><sup>19</sup></a> On April 2, 2018, Alibaba acquired Ele.me for US$9.5 billion.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:20" href="#fn:20"><sup>20</sup></a> </p> <h3>Litigation</h3> <p>In May 2021, a delivery driver named Liu died of a stroke while delivering food for Ele.me.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:21" href="#fn:21"><sup>21</sup></a>: 184 Liu had an outsourcing cooperation agreement with a third party agency and had no direct employment relationship with Ele.me.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:22" href="#fn:22"><sup>22</sup></a>: 184 His family sued both the outsourcing firm and Ele.me, arguing that Ele.me should also be responsible in the death for its failure to exercise due care.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:23" href="#fn:23"><sup>23</sup></a>: 184 In November 2022, the Chaoyang District Court ruled in favor of Liu's family, stating that the platform itself was partly liable because it had the capacity to monitor delivery updates but failed to give timely updates to the outsourcing agency, resulting in delayed medical response to Liu.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:24" href="#fn:24"><sup>24</sup></a>: 184 The Chaoyang District Court launched a media campaign to promote the decision.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:25" href="#fn:25"><sup>25</sup></a>: 184 </p> <h2 id="further-reading">Further reading</h2> <ul><li>Lunden, Ingrid (August 24, 2017). <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/24/baidu-confirms-sale-of-its-food-delivery-business-to-rival-ele-me/">"Baidu sells food delivery business to its rival Ele.me"</a>. TechCrunch. Retrieved January 3, 2018.</li> <li>Lei Y-W. 2021. "<a href="http://www.yawenlei.com/uploads/4/4/3/4/44340649/asr_lei.pdf">Delivering Solidarity: Platform Architecture and Collective Contention in China’s Platform Economy.</a>" <i>American Sociological Review</i>.</li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Banjo, Shelly; Ramli, David (1 April 2018). "Alibaba Takes Control of Ele.me, at $9.5 Billion Value". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 3 April 2018. Retrieved 1 April 2018. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-04-02/alibaba-buys-ele-me-in-deal-that-implies-9-5b-enterprise-value" target="_blank">https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-04-02/alibaba-buys-ele-me-in-deal-that-implies-9-5b-enterprise-value</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>"阿里巴巴宣布成立本地生活服务公司：饿了么与口碑正式合并_10%公司_澎湃新闻-The Paper". www.thepaper.cn. Archived from the original on 2023-01-14. 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Retrieved 2017-05-31. <a href="http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2017-04-20/doc-ifyepsra4826615.shtml" target="_blank">http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2017-04-20/doc-ifyepsra4826615.shtml</a> <a href="#fnref:17" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:18"><p>"饿了么、美团点评等四家网络订餐平台成立自律共建联盟 违法商户同步下线|美团|自律|食品_新浪财经_新浪网". Finance.sina.com.cn. 2017-04-17. Archived from the original on 2018-12-23. Retrieved 2017-05-31. <a href="http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2017-04-20/doc-ifyepsra4826615.shtml" target="_blank">http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2017-04-20/doc-ifyepsra4826615.shtml</a> <a href="#fnref:18" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:19"><p>Wang, Yue. "Alibaba Moves To Swallow Up China's Ele.me Food Delivery Service". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2018-02-28. Retrieved 2018-02-28. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/2018/02/28/alibaba-moves-to-swallow-up-chinas-ele-me-food-delivery-service/#48adbf47a0fa" target="_blank">https://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/2018/02/28/alibaba-moves-to-swallow-up-chinas-ele-me-food-delivery-service/#48adbf47a0fa</a> <a href="#fnref:19" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:20"><p>"阿里巴巴宣布95亿美元全资收购饿了么 张旭豪转任董事长". wallstreetcn.com. 2018-04-02. Archived from the original on 2018-04-02. Retrieved 2018-04-02. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180402163229/https://wallstreetcn.com/articles/3268850" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20180402163229/https://wallstreetcn.com/articles/3268850</a> <a href="#fnref:20" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:21"><p>Zhang, Angela Huyue (2024). High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197682258.001.0001. ISBN 9780197682258. <a href="9780197682258" target="_blank">9780197682258</a> <a href="#fnref:21" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:22"><p>Zhang, Angela Huyue (2024). High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197682258.001.0001. ISBN 9780197682258. <a href="9780197682258" target="_blank">9780197682258</a> <a href="#fnref:22" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:23"><p>Zhang, Angela Huyue (2024). High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197682258.001.0001. ISBN 9780197682258. <a href="9780197682258" target="_blank">9780197682258</a> <a href="#fnref:23" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:24"><p>Zhang, Angela Huyue (2024). High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197682258.001.0001. ISBN 9780197682258. <a href="9780197682258" target="_blank">9780197682258</a> <a href="#fnref:24" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:25"><p>Zhang, Angela Huyue (2024). High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197682258.001.0001. ISBN 9780197682258. <a href="9780197682258" target="_blank">9780197682258</a> <a href="#fnref:25" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>