Grape Life

About Grape Life

Shenzhen Grape Information Technology Co., Ltd., operating under the brand Grape Life (putao.cn), was established as a mobile internet company on April 6, 2012. The firm was founded by CEO Yang Weiquan, who brought valuable industry experience from his previous role at Huawei. His academic background includes a Master of Science from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The company's initial strategic focus was on enhancing mobile communication through its first product, "Contacts+" (通讯录+), envisioned as a next-generation address book application. Recognizing a market shift, Grape Life executed a significant pivot in 2015 towards the burgeoning Online-to-Offline (O2O) sector. This led to the development of its flagship offering, "Grape Life" (葡萄生活), a comprehensive life services navigation platform. This service functioned as an evolved "Yellow Pages 2.0," moving beyond simple phone number listings to provide a directory of integrated O2O services.

Grape Life's business model centered on forging strategic partnerships with major smartphone manufacturers. The company successfully integrated its O2O service navigation platform directly into the native system address books of prominent brands, including Coolpad, Lenovo, and ZTE. This pre-installation strategy provided a substantial user base, allowing consumers to access a wide array of local services—from home services to entertainment—directly from their contact lists without needing to download multiple third-party applications. This deep integration aimed to create a seamless user experience, handling account management and payments across different service providers. By early 2015, the company reported that its solution was adopted by a significant percentage of domestic phone manufacturers.

The company's growth was supported by three significant funding rounds. It began with a 6 million RMB Angel round in April 2012 from Decent Capital (德迅投资), the investment firm founded by Tencent co-founder Zeng Liqing. This was followed by a substantial $10 million Series A round in December 2014, led by Legend Capital (君联资本). The final publicly disclosed funding was a 100 million RMB Series B round in August 2016, co-led by Legend Capital and Koala Fund (考拉基金), an investment vehicle initiated by Lakala.