Techbuzz China By Pandaily

In episode 31 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Xiaohongshu, also known as RED, which had received a $300 million investment from Alibaba. Though the money was injected in June, the two companies have recently announced an additional cooperation that links them at the product level — an integration with Alibaba’s Taobao. What is the significance of these developments, and what is the story of Xiaohongshu? Listeners also hear from Elijah Whaley, the CMO of the Chinese influencer marketing platform PARKLU, which counts RED as a client. Rui and Ying-Ying share that Xiaohongshu’s tagline is “The world’s best lifestyle at your fingertips,” and people often refer to the site as “Instagram and Pinterest sprinkled with a dose of Taobao.” The site’s founders, Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu, are only 33 this year. They first met a decade ago in a U.S. mall, though Xiaohongshu did not exist until Charlwin attended a Tencent-sponsored entrepreneurship camp in his first summer of business school.