What Meilele does

Meilele is a Chinese direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform specializing in the commercialization of household furniture, headquartered in Chengdu and founded in 2008 by Yang Gao and Li Yonggang (the latter serving as co-founder and CTO). The company operated as a for-profit private entity targeting Chinese consumers seeking home furnishings through an online retail channel, positioning itself as a professional platform for household goods commerce. Its core product is the Meilele furniture e-commerce website (meilele.com), which functioned as the primary commercial interface between the company and its consumer base; the underlying technology stack is described as a standard web-based retail platform without disclosed proprietary technology components, APIs, integrations, or AI features.

Meilele's business model is a direct-to-consumer online retail model for furniture and household goods, with revenue generated through merchandise sales to Chinese consumers. The company pursued a digital-first go-to-market approach, relying on its e-commerce platform rather than physical retail showrooms to reach its customer segment of Chinese household furniture buyers. The input data documents two venture funding rounds — a Series A in April 2011 led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and a $40M Series B in March 2012 led by Vertex Ventures with participation from K2VC, KTB Capital, Luminous Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, LionRock Capital, and Vertex Ventures China — reflecting early-stage institutional backing to scale the platform. Headcount is reported at 11-50 employees, indicating a lean operating organization. Note: The meilele.com domain currently resolves to a Chinese web-novel aggregation site under the name 美乐乐小说网 (Meilele Novel Network), operated by 新笔趣阁 (New Biquge); this appears to be a domain repurposing separate from the original furniture e-commerce business, and the analysis above is grounded in the furniture-commerce identity documented in firmographic, funding, and leadership records.

Name

Meilele

Legal name

新笔趣阁

Website

https://meilele.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Meilele is a Chinese direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform, founded in 2008 in Chengdu, that commercialized household furniture online to Chinese consumers and raised approximately $40M in venture funding through 2012.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Furniture Retail

akta.pro primary industry

Home, Furniture & Appliances C2C (CRAFAKAD)

Keywords

• Furniture e-commerce
• Home goods retail
• Online furniture shopping
• Household products sales
• Home furnishing platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Chengdu

HQ country

China

HQ region

Asia

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Supply Chain, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Personnel

Revenue model

1. Advertising: Revenue generated through advertising on the platform pages as the novels are provided for free reading

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels1 record

Core offering

Meilele is a Chinese B2C e-commerce platform that commercializes furniture and household goods to consumers through an online retail channel. The platform offers Chinese consumers the ability to browse and order home furnishing products, with the company operating as a professional household e-commerce retailer focused on furniture commercialization.

Product overview

美乐乐小说网 is a single-platform online novel reading website that provides free access to original Chinese web novels. The platform operates as a unified reading portal without modular add-ons or separate product lines. All novels are organized into genre-based categories including Fantasy (奇幻), Xianxia (仙侠), Youth (青春), Historical (历史), Sports (竞技), and Supernatural (灵异). The platform features a search function, book request system, and point-based rewards system. No API, integrations with third-party tools, or AI-powered features are offered.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Meilele Furniture E-commerce Platform An online retail platform enabling Chinese consumers to browse, order, and receive furniture and household goods for home delivery. Serves as the direct-to-consumer sales channel for Meilele's furniture commercialization business.

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves3 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Broad incumbents

• Red Star Macalline (红星美凯龙): China's largest offline home furnishing mall operator, with hundreds of physical stores nationwide and a growing online platform. Competes with Meilele for Chinese household furniture spend, particularly in higher-ticket purchases where showroom experience matters.
• Mousse (慕思): Leading Chinese mattress and sleep products brand with significant online retail presence. Competes for the same household furniture and bedding wallet share as Meilele, though with a manufacturing-and-brand model rather than pure marketplace.
• Kuka Home (顾家家居): Major Chinese upholstered furniture manufacturer and brand with integrated online and offline retail. Competes with Meilele in sofas and household furniture but operates from a manufacturing-led model with broader category reach.
• JD.com Home & Furniture (京东居家): JD.com's home and furniture category leverages the platform's owned logistics network for large-item delivery and installation. A broad incumbent in the same product category as Meilele, though serving furniture as one of many verticals.
• Tmall Home & Furniture (天猫家装): The dedicated home and furniture vertical of Tmall, the leading Chinese horizontal marketplace operated by Alibaba. Overlaps directly with Meilele's product category but at vastly larger scale and with traffic, fulfillment, and financing advantages Meilele cannot match.

Direct peers

• Lin's Furniture (林氏木业): One of China's largest dedicated online furniture retailers, founded in 2007 and headquartered in Guangzhou. Like Meilele, Lin's built a vertically focused furniture B2C e-commerce business and is the closest direct comparable in scale, category, and target customer.

Emerging players

• Emma Sleep (China): DTC mattress and sleep products brand with growing China operations. Comparable to Meilele as a digitally native furniture/sleep brand targeting Chinese consumers through e-commerce, though narrower in product scope.

Market position

Strengths3 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights4 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors7 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Meilele