Laid-off employees and investors are suing collapsed Chinese grocery delivery company Missfresh and the Wall Street underwriters who marketed its shares in a $300mn New York offering last year over unpaid salaries and alleged violation of securities laws.
Missfresh pioneered speedy grocery delivery in China, raising more than $1bn in cash from investors including tech-focused funds run by Tiger Global and Goldman Sachs, to reach a $3bn IPO valuation.
Executives claimed its mini-warehouses and pink-clad riders could make 30-minute grocery delivery profitable, but the company was hobbled by Beijing’s crackdown on the technology sector, slowing economic growth in China and waning investor appetite for funding its losses.