Seafood company backed by Jack Ma starts operations
Sales drive via Freshippo and Tmall comes as tech tycoon shifts his focus to sustainable food sector
A fishery and agriculture company backed by Alibaba Group Holding founder Jack Ma has started commercial operations, offering consumers seafood products via the Chinese e-commerce giant’s Freshippo retail store chain and Tmall online marketplace.
The Hangzhou-based start-up, 1.8 Meters Marine Technology (Zhejiang), announced the development on Monday at a media event where it showed advertisements for frozen yellow croaker fish that immediately pop open on the Freshippo app’s landing page.
The fish and fresh mussels, sourced from eastern Zhejiang province, are the two main products currently offered by 1.8 Meters in the domestic market.
Dozens of orders had been placed for the two products on Tmall as of yesterday noon, which some analysts said could be viewed as a lukewarm performance on the platform. Taobao and Tmall had more than 800 million monthly active users as of November.
The online marketing drive by 1.8 Meters marks another step in Ma’s efforts to branch out into agriculture and sustainable food production, following his extensive travels for research into the sectors as part of his post-retirement focus.
The start-up’s president, Simon Hu Xiaoming, is a veteran executive at Alibaba who previously served as chief executive of financial technology giant Ant Group. The management team also includes Ding Ming, former head of Ant’s investment unit, and Gong Yuping, a former human resources manager at Alibaba.
The firm’s controlling shareholder is Hong Kong-based 1.8 Meters Technology Holding, which has a 71 per cent stake, according to information on Qichacha, a Chinese corporate information website.
Hangzhou Dajingtou No 22 Arts and Culture, one of the ventures created by billionaire Ma in 2019 for investment deals in China, previously held a 10 per cent stake in the start-up.
Ma, who retired as Alibaba’s executive chairman in 2019 on his 55th birthday, has also recently started a new company, with a name that translates to “Hangzhou Ma’s Kitchen Food” in English, focused on sales of pre-packaged food as well as the primary processing and sale of edible agricultural products.
Hong Kong-based 1.8 Meters Technology Holding is the controlling shareholder of 1.8 Meters Marine Technology, with a stake of this much 71%
Since handing over the reins of the e-commerce company he founded nearly a quarter of a century ago, the globe-trotting tech billionaire has visited agricultural laboratories in the Netherlands, a tuna farm in Japan and a shrimp farm in Thailand to better understand his new vocation.
In June this year, Ma conducted his first class as a visiting professor in a seminar jointly organised by Tokyo College and the University of Tokyo’s Global Leadership Programme.
Ma has taken up professorships at various schools outside the mainland, including a threeyear term as honorary professor at the University of Hong Kong.
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