By YU Hao
Grocery app Missfresh has received a 200-million-yuan (US$29.6 million) injection from Shanxi Donghui Group, which will be closed as an equity investment. Upon closing, Shanxi Donghui will have the right to appoint two directors to the Missfresh board.
Shanxi Donghui is a multinational conglomerate operating in energy, nonferrous metals, tourism and agriculture. Missfresh and Shanxi Donghui will exchange resources and practices relating to agriculture operations and sales. The two will cooperate on a range of agriculture initiatives.
This is the first financing for Missfresh since its debut on the NASDAQ in June 2021. Before this, Missfresh was facing delisting with its stock trading at only US$0.38. Since March, Missfresh has defaulted on salaries and payments, according to an employee who was laid off in May.
According to NASDAQ's rules, companies whose shares trade at less than US for 30 trading days will be warned and will be suspended from trading if they fail to act within 90 or 180 days of the warning.
As for unreleased financial results, the market previously believed that the ongoing internal audit process was the main reason for the delay. Missfresh released the results of an independent internal review led by the audit committee on July 1. The audit revealed questionable transactions. Revenue in the first nine months of last year decreased by 677 million yuan.
