Summary: The fine chemicals industry is a typical long-tail market, with millions of product SKUs. The one-stop procurement service for industrial additives has a large room for development. .
“Kain Industrial Additives”, a one-stop purchasing service platform for industrial additives, recently completed Series C financing and was exclusively invested by Zhenghan Investment. Kain has completed the B+ round of financing in October 2021, led by Tongchuang Weiye, followed by Fangdao Capital and Yilian Capital, and has completed a total of nearly 200 million yuan in financing within one year. The financing will be used to strategically deploy an end-to-end digital supply chain and build a digital cloud factory with chemical production companies.
Chemicals are the most basic raw materials in various fields of industry and life. It is understood that the scale of the domestic chemical consumption market in 2018 has reached 41% of the world’s. The domestic chemical industry The industry is mainly divided into three major sectors: bulk raw materials, scientific research reagents and fine chemicals. The first type of bulk chemical raw materials is the largest market segment in the industry, with a market share of about 10 trillion yuan; the second type of scientific research reagent industry is mainly targeted at universities and scientific research institutions, with a smaller market size and visible The market size is around 10 billion yuan. The third type of fine chemical materials, namely raw material additives, are widely used in various chemical categories such as industrial coatings, plastic production, adhesives, and daily chemical production. According to the “2022-2027 Panoramic Survey of China’s Fine Chemical Industry” by Zhongyan Puhua and Development Strategy Research Report”, in 2021, the domestic fine chemical additives market size will be approximately 2.74 trillion yuan.
Compared with other industries, user purchasing preferences for chemical additive products are more similar to those at the retail end. Such products are more like “auxiliary materials” in essential daily necessities. There are many categories, scattered users, and strong demands for differentiation. Therefore, the trading of chemical products has always relied more on offline traditional sales channels. Problems such as numerous SKUs, complex user needs, long sample cycles, and low efficiency of the circulation and distribution system have also become pain points in the digital development of chemical product procurement. Kain Industrial Additives was established in 2008. It has entered the fine chemical additives market from plastics, coatings, adhesives, inks, daily chemicals and other industries. It links upstream and downstream suppliers and customers in the industry through a supply chain service platform, providing a one-stop service in the field of industrial additives. Comprehensive B2B services. At present, the company provides procurement services in the form of a self-operated mall. In 2021, the transaction volume of the platform reached 1.2 billion yuan. It has integrated more than 100,000 chemical raw material products and has cooperated with more than 50,000 factories around the world, covering Evonik, Dow, and BASF. , Eastman, Clariant, Wacker, Honeywell and other chemical brands.
From the upstream market perspective, traditional chemical additive suppliers lack data foundation and have traditional single sales channels, making it difficult for them to meet the fast and complex downstream market needs. In this regard, Kain provides digital marketing solutions for it, digitizing user portraits through big data, and conducting statistical statistics on product transactions to accurately match needs, break information islands in the market, and shorten the upstream and downstream information interaction paths. .
From the perspective of downstream demand, the customers of industrial additives are mainly small and medium-sized chemical factories. The digital operation systems of most factories are only used at the internal operation level, while in sales and Digital management on the procurement side still lacks a standardized platform. In this regard, Kain has jointly built a digital cloud factory with a number of chemical manufacturing companies, using software data to coordinate the production of hardware equipment, connect the production line and system end, connect production data and supply data, and complete it through supply chain data analysis and calculation. Procurement planning and inventory management, thereby reducing losses in the supply chain throughout the industry.
For different industry usage scenarios, Kain has launched the following services in recent years to match the needs of different users:
Chemical Quotation Engine Mini Program: Online for 20 years, digitally empowers the procurement process, undertakes the core procurement work of the supply chain, provides accurate, multi-channel quotation information, and presents Analyze the rise and fall of the industrial additive market to improve the speed of purchasing decisions.
Chemical Sample Mall: Launched in 2018, it aims at the research and development needs of factory technicians, solves the problems of downstream enterprises such as difficulty in finding samples and high trial and error costs, and integrates samples in the industry resources, providing R&D materials and sample procurement services.
Kainzhicai APP: Opening up the supply chain collaboration system of the upstream and downstream of the chemical industry, it will develop into the core middle platform of intelligent procurement, providing real-time quotations and quick search results. One-stop services such as samples, intelligent procurement and exclusive customer service.
Kain Financial Services: serves the upstream and downstream of the industry, introduces financial institutions to provide customers with credit channel support, and solves customers’ poor procurement capital turnover and diversified procurement needs.
Li ��, founder and CEO of Kain Industrial AdditivesWei graduated from the School of Materials and Energy of Guangdong University of Technology, majoring in polymers, and received a CMBA MBA from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He also serves as the deputy leader and director of the East District of the Shanghai Internet Business Alliance.
When it comes to the market prospects of chemical additives, Li Junwei believes that fine chemicals are a typical long-tail market with millions of product SKUs, so one-stop purchasing services for industrial additives There is still a lot of room for development. Kain’s development pace in the industry has always been steady and steady. After 15 years of learning and exploring the industry market, it has entered the transforming fine chemical additives industry from the perspective of network marketing and digital system layout. Within three years, Kain will be committed to achieving the goal of 10 billion yuan in transaction volume by deepening supply chain management, expanding product categories and building an open platform. In the future, the company will also strengthen its overseas cooperation layout and realize the transformation of a digital service platform for all categories of additives.