China’s Velo, Didatuan Announce Integration

Chinese coupon provider Velo and group buying website Didatuan.com announced via internal emails that the two companies have completed a formal integration.

After the integration, a new company will be established and maintain the Velo brand. Song Zhongjie, former chief executive officer of Didatuan.com, has been appointed chief executive officer of the new company.

According to Didatuan.com, Velo and Didatuan will implement independent operations with their respective brands after the integration. The detailed business integration plan will be released soon. Meanwhile, the company said former Velo executives’ positions in the new company are yet to be decided.

Velo is headquartered in Shanghai, while Didatuan.com is headquartered in Beijing. The two companies have respective offices in major Chinese cities. After the integration, the offices of the two companies will not be relocated.

Founded in 2006, Velo is an offline coupon information terminal operator. It focuses on offline coupon terminal deployment. Users can gain coupon information from its terminals and the company charges advertising fees from vendors. At present, Velo claims to have over five million users across China and it had gained three rounds of investments so far.

Founded in 2010, Didatuan.com once gained investment from IDG Capital Partners and currently claims about ten million registered users. In addition, statistics from the Chinese group buying navigation site Tuan800.com showed that in December 2012, the user base of Didatuan.com ranked eighth among Chinese group buying websites.