Pinduoduo announces US$500 million private share placement to a global institutional investor
December 21 2020 - 8:49AM
Pinduoduo Inc. (“Pinduoduo” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: PDD)
said a global institutional investor will purchase close to US$500
million of new shares through a private placement as the
agriculture-focused technology platform pursues its strategic
priority of raising farm productivity and improving food security
and quality.
The investor has also agreed to a six-month lockup period for
the newly issued Class A ordinary shares, representing
approximately 0.3% of Pinduoduo's post-issuance total outstanding
shares. The transaction was priced with reference to the
volume-weighted average price of the last five trading days and is
expected to close on or about Dec. 24, 2020.
Pinduoduo expects to use the proceeds to strengthen its balance
sheet and make strategic investments. The share issue follows an
oversubscribed convertible note-and-equity offer last month, in
which the company raised a total of US$6.1 billion, including
overallotment.
"We see this as another vote of confidence in our vision of
using technology for good," said Chen Lei, Chief Executive Officer
of Pinduoduo. "There is huge potential for more digitization and
technological innovation in the growing, transportation, and sale
of food. It will ultimately benefit everyone because food touches
everyone."
Pinduoduo operates China's largest online marketplace for
agricultural products, with GMV for the category expected to hit
250 billion yuan this year, up from 136 billion yuan in 2019. The
platform connects millions of farmers with its 731 million active
buyers. Pinduoduo is the only major technology company in China to
make improving agriculture a stated strategic priority.
Beyond widening downstream market access for farmers through
e-commerce, Pinduoduo is investing in creating a lower-cost,
next-day logistics infrastructure that is more suited to handling
perishables as grocery shopping shifts rapidly online.
Pinduoduo is also investing in upstream agri-food technology
that can help raise agricultural productivity and quality. The
company is actively evaluating global investment opportunities in
areas including alternative proteins, food safety and precision
farming. It has a research collaboration with the Singapore
Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation to develop a more
cost-effective and robust method of testing fresh produce for
pesticide residues.
To demonstrate the potential for agritech to improve
agricultural productivity, Pinduoduo co-organized a
strawberry-growing competition pitting teams of data scientists
employing algorithms, intelligent sensors, and greenhouse
automation against traditional growers. At the close of the
four-month contest, which ended last month, the technology teams
produced 196% more fruit by weight on average than the farmers.
The company is also helping promising startups explore how to
deploy their smart agriculture solutions to working farms in China
to scale their business and bring down the costs of implementation.
It recently sponsored a global startup competition co-organized by
the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
and Zhejiang University.
About Pinduoduo Inc.
Pinduoduo operates China's largest agri-focused technology
platform, providing an online marketplace that connects millions of
agricultural producers with consumers across the country. A pioneer
of interactive commerce and the consumer-to-manufacturer model,
Pinduoduo aims to bring more businesses and people into the digital
economy so that local communities can benefit from the increased
productivity and convenience through new market opportunities.
For more information on Pinduoduo news and industry trends,
please visit our content hub at
http://stories.pinduoduo-global.com/.
Source: Pinduoduo Inc.
For investor and media inquiries, please contact us at:
investor@pinduoduo.com
internationalmedia@pinduoduo.com
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