By LU Yibei

Qingquan Chushan, a copycat of Chinese beverage firm Genki Forest, closed 10 million yuan (US$1.55 million) of series A+ financing on May 10.

Founded in 2018, founders, SUN Zhiqiang and DI Jie, both worked for Genki Forest until 2018, which explains the uncanny similarity of the two drinks, from packaging and flavor to pricing.

And it did so with good reasons. Genki Forest is two years older than Qingquan, but after another round of financing in March, the valuation of the company that built its fortune with sparkling water had reached US$6 billion. 

Qingquan has no qualms talking about such a strategy since it is not the only latecomer that imitated Genki Forest. Sun once said in an interview "our design followed Genki Forest’s and we want people to see there are only two brands on the shelves."

On Tmall, 30,000 six-bottle packs of Qingting are sold at 24.9 yuan each month. The same Genki Forest sparkling water sells over 40,000 packs. Genki Forest is focused on first-tier cities, Qingquan sells to smaller cities and colleges. Smaller cities mean lower marketing costs. Qingquan's market budget is only a few million yuan. Genki Forest pays out a hundred times more to open markets in the metropolises.

Exactly like Genki Forest had before them, Qingquan released tea drink after gaining a firm foothold through sparkling water. With live streaming sessions and campus roadshows, Qingquan’s 12-pack tea sells more than 10,000 on Tmall now.

Qingquan said sales will reach a billion yuan this year, but it has a long way to go before catching up with Genki. Genki Forest made 3 billion yuan last year and is expected to make 7.5 billion this year, five times more than Qingquan.