MEICAI, a Chinese startup that helps farmers sell vegetables to restaurants, raised US$600 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global Management and Hillhouse Capital, people familiar with the matter said.

The money will be used to expand as the startup competes for a bigger share of China’s fragmented food sourcing market, the sources said.

According to one person familiar with the matter, the company raised about US$800 million at a valuation of about US$7 billion. Meicai was said to be valued at about US$2.8 billion pre-investment in its previous funding round in January.

Meicai, which means “beautiful vegetable,” was founded in 2014 by Liu Chuanjun, a rocket scientist who set a goal of sourcing produce for about 10 million small and medium-sized restaurants in China.

Using a smartphone app, customers can order specialties such as bok choy and Sichuan peppercorns directly from farms, disrupting traditional wholesaling by cutting out middlemen. As of the end of last year, Meicai served close to a 100 cities revenue had surpassed 10 billion yuan.

The funding round is among the largest for a Chinese startup this year.

Liu, 36, was born in the rural areas of Shandong Province, often helping his family maintain their corn field growing up. As one of the few people in his village to make it to university, he studied astrophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and worked on rocket projects including China’s Shenzhou spacecraft, according to the company. (SD-Agencies)